#etc etc. whatever. do NOT start saying that you heard that tumblrs getting rid of --

[stick-named-figure]

tumblrs like actively making this site bad. like this has been a thing for a while but like. the truncating of reblog chains (can no longer go to a previous reblog for some reason) and also now they're selling domains? i thought this before they started selling domains but i wouldnt be surprised if tumblr got rid of subdomains bc like. they seem to be trying to curtail on it (blogs not having subdomains by default, manually having to set a blog to "custom url" or whatever)

[winter-soldier-vibes]

Reason to Come Back (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Reason to come back

Bucky Barnes x reader

Word count: 3574

Request: "can you do something where seb(or one of his characters)and reader used to date and one day he broke up with her and after a short time he comes up with a new girl(not cheating)and the reader thinks that she’s worthless and not beautiful or good enough and that’s why he broke up with her and tries to be better(you know what to do•_-) and silently suffering etc. and with a happy ending where they get back together"

Warnings: mentions of a breakup, angst, depression, very slight mentions of disordered eating and exercise (very slight, not like most of my other fics), general feelings of worthlessness, angst

Tags: @buckys2thicc @mardema @stucky-on-spiderman @abitgryffindorky @freigeistundanderes @barnesplums @thatfangirl42 @buckfics @babyboibucky 

A/N: I AM SO SORRY TO THE ANON THAT REQUESTED THIS SO LONG AGO AND THAT IT TOOK SO LONG! I don’t even know if they’re still here, I feel so bad. I got an anon request for this fic and I did not know about the inbox for Tumblr accounts until just recently because I’m incompetent. There’s no excuse for me taking so long to write it, but I wanted to even though it’s been 9 months since they sent it. If you’re still here anon, thank you for sticking with me!

NEW NOTE 06/04/21: I rewrote this to be for Bucky as opposed to Sebastian. It is still mostly the same, just reworded in some places. This is meant to take place in reference to the timeline of tfatws and mentions moments from the show. I am referencing “the time he was gone” as the series episode 1-6. I don’t know how much time passed but I assume it was at least a few weeks if not longer (especially between episodes 5 and 6). That’s how I wrote it.

------------------------

It was a quiet night, you under some blankets on the couch watching a movie. There was an empty bowl aside from a few popcorn kernels on the coffee table in front of you, the movie more for background noise than entertainment. You were scrolling through your phone mindlessly, looking for a distraction that would keep you occupied.

Not that it was working too well. There wasn’t much that could distract you from the fact that you were alone.

9 months. You had dated for 9 months. Not that he had been around for much of it. He had been with Sam on an extended mission, and he had been gone for a few weeks. You didn’t know much about the mission, Bucky wasn’t allowed to tell you. For your safety. You understood. It was his job, you knew that, but it could be lonely most of the time. He would call or text you if he could, but he couldn’t compromise his location. You were always happy to hear from him, but it wasn’t the same as when he was around.

You knew this would happen, and you had accepted that. It was hard, but you could manage.

You hadn’t heard from him in a weeks, but you didn’t think much of it. He and Sam must have gotten closer to the answers they had been looking for. You could only hope that he was safe. it took a toll on you, worrying about him, but you had been so happy when he had said he was coming home. But when he walked through the door, he didn’t seem excited at all.

You had wrapped your arms around him, and he had hesitantly hugged you back gently. You had known something was wrong almost immediately, pulling back and trying to meet his eyes. “Babe? Are you okay?”

“We should talk,” he said, struggling to meet your eyes.

You pulled your eyes together with concern. “Yeah, yeah what’s wrong?”

“I, uh… I don’t know if this is gonna work out.”

You shook your head, surprised. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“I just don’t think you and I work with 1,000 miles between us.”

“What?” you said in disbelief. “You’re the one who has to leave and I told you that I’m okay with it, and I am. I never thought you’d be the one with the problem with it.”

“Y/n -”

“We can work this out, Buck. You said it yourself, you don’t normally go away for that long. I’m not going anywhere, I - ”

“I can’t ask you to stay, y/n,” he said, cutting you off. You shut your mouth and shook your head. “Where is this coming from, what happened?” you asked.

He cleared his throat. “I should go.”

“You don’t get to walk away from this like that!” you exclaimed, nearly yelling.

“And I don’t have the right to expect you to wait for months while I’m out trying to save people. I thought it’d be fine but I couldn’t stop thinking about you here, alone. There’s going to be more missions, more danger. They recreated the serum. Who knows what else they’ll be able to create? You shouldn’t have to deal with that.”

“You don’t get to make that choice for me! I told you I’m okay with it and I still am, Bucky! I know the risks!” you said, tears pricking your eyes.

He looked away. “You deserve much better than me. Someone who can be there for you.”

You walked up to him and cupped his face. “You’re all I could ever want Bucky. Distance be damned.”

He sighed and pulled you into a hug, squeezing you tightly for a moment. “I have to go y/n. I’m sorry.”

He let you go and turned around, not even looking back to say goodbye.

That had been a couple of weeks ago. You had been crushed at first, devastated. But you were still able to function in your day-to-day life. You had a few friends to hype you up or cry with you, whatever the day was. You were able to still get to work, try to move on. And it was getting better, but the nights were still hard. It wasn’t the same when you knew he wouldn’t be coming home.

During the day you could pretend like you were waiting for that night when he would be able to call you. But at night, it was dark and you didn’t have a person you wanted to call.

You weren’t bitter, in a way you understood. You had known how relationships could be ruined by distance and work. But being a super soldier wasn’t a typical line of work. You had been okay with it, but you hadn’t thought that it would’ve affected Bucky as much as it seemed to. You had been emotional at the time, but looking back on it you could understand where he was coming from. Relationships were two-sided - just because you felt okay didn’t guarantee he was.

You knew what he did was dangerous. You had accepted that there might not have always been a happy ending. Maybe he hadn’t.

But then one day you had walked into a bar, only to see Bucky flirting with another girl, laughing away..

That was all you needed to see.

You didn’t want to read too much into it, any kind of situation could be misread. But him laughing with a very attractive girl over drinks shortly after becoming single - you couldn’t help but wonder.

You tried to tell yourself that it didn’t matter, that you were reading everything wrong, but your heart still felt as though it was breaking.

She was gorgeous. Much more so than you, you had thought.

Was that why he left? Was he just wanting to get himself back out there? Had he met her and just needed to get rid of you?

You didn’t want to think that way, none of it was true. He wouldn’t do that, he was a good man. But still…

Maybe if you were different it would’ve been harder for him to leave.

Maybe you hadn’t given him a good enough reason to stay.

And maybe, if you were better, prettier, he would come back.

It started small - making more of an effort to go to the gym, not ordering takeaways every night, that sort of thing. Not that you had much of an appetite to begin with. But you didn’t realize when your days had become full of going from work to the gym, nor why you had freaked out so much when you had sprained an ankle and couldn’t do your normal workout.

You had decided to work your arms those next few days to supplement the cardio you had missed. You had kept this up until you woke up one morning struggling to turn over because you were so sore. You decided that that day, you could take a rest day.

A rest day turned into a rest week, and soon enough you were only leaving your house to go to work. And only because you needed money.

You had cut yourself off from most of your contacts, still replying every now and then so they wouldn’t be concerned. You didn’t go out with them or call them because you were worried they would see right through you. Better to stay home. Your bed would never judge you.

You had become familiar with the spots on the wall, the streaks from god knows what, the way that light would filter through your window as the sun ascended and descended the sky. Hours could pass and you could still be in the same position.

You had to keep up a front around everyone. Letting people know how much you were hurting was not an option for you. Then they would ask what was wrong and pull you aside and look at you with this concerned face that you couldn’t deal with. It was the one that everyone always gave when someone was having a bad day, the one people put on when they wanted you to think that they cared. Sometimes they did, but most of the time a person with any sense of morals would put that face on to make a person think that they cared. It’s the same way “How are you?” is more of a greeting than a genuine question.

There were people who cared, but you didn’t want to have that conversation. You didn’t even know what you were doing anymore. It was an honest thought of bettering yourself, but it was for the wrong reasons. Trying to be better for Bucky made you realize how much you missed him. How angry you really were at him. But you couldn’t take it out on him, he didn’t deserve that at all, he didn’t earn that. But you were angry at...something, and maybe it was yourself, at letting him walk out that door, of not calling him and leaving him messages. Maybe if you had fought for him he would’ve stayed. If you had said something when he distanced himself.

You felt like this was your fault. And maybe if you changed something about yourself, you would learn from your mistakes.

Not that you knew exactly what you had done or what isolating yourself would fix, or teach you for that matter.

At some point, you must have fallen asleep because your ringtone jolted you awake. You groaned, shutting your eyes again. You would let it go to voicemail, just like all of the others. If it was that important they would text you.

You let it ring, sighing when it had stopped. You readjusted in your bed, trying to fall back asleep. It was a Saturday morning, you had until Monday morning to sleep. You were going to make the most of it.

But then your phone began ringing again.

You opened your eyes again, picking up your phone to see who it was. You dropped the phone when you saw the name

Bucky Barnes

Why the fuck was he calling you? What could he possibly have to say to you?

You watched the phone ring through to voicemail, soon after seeing a voicemail was left. You didn’t bother listening to it, you didn’t need to. You simply rolled over in bed. If it were that important, he would have called sooner.

Bucky’s POV

As the call went to voicemail again, Bucky was confused. He had never known you to miss a call, ever. It wasn’t like you, he knew you would drop anything to take calls. You had said you hated people leaving voicemails because you hated them having to listen to your voicemail message. You had thought your voice had sounded weird. It was one of the little things he remembered about you that made him smile

And realize how royally he had fucked up.

Being away on a mission wasn’t anything new for him, but maintaining a serious relationship for him was. He had never met anyone like you, and he had missed you so much when he had left. He hadn’t felt anything like what he did when you smiled at him since the 40′s. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but all he could think about was how much he had missed you. And that made him think about how much you must have missed him.

He felt like he was holding you back in some way. He was used to being away in dangerous situations for periods of time but you weren’t. And no matter how much you had assured him that you were okay with the long-distance relationship, as the months went on he felt guilty for not being able to be there in the way that he wanted to.

In the way you deserved.

He broke up with you because he thought you deserved better than relying on phone calls and texts for months at a time. Someone who could be there all the time for you. Someone who you didn’t have to worry about getting shot when he left for a mission. Someone predictable and reliable. Something he couldn’t always do.

But God, did he miss you.

He regretted walking out that door. He regretted not giving you a better reason, for not calling you or texting you until now, weeks later. The more time went on, the more he felt it would be inappropriate to call you to apologize.

But he couldn’t take it anymore, so he dialed your number. And when it went to voicemail, he had gotten a little worried.

He knew he didn’t have much of a right or reason to be worried, but he had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right. So, he decided to reach out to one of your friends.

Hey, is y/n alright?

Why do you want to know?

Look, I know I messed up. I just wanted to apologize and give her the answer she deserves. But she’s not answering my calls.

She doesn’t do phone calls anymore.

What do you mean?

She won’t answer calls. She won’t even come out with us anymore. Something’s up but she denies it.

When did this start?

When do you think?

Bucky’s heart sank to his stomach. This was his fault. And he had to go make it right.

Your POV

You were still in bed, wondering why Bucky had called you. It didn’t make sense to you, for him to call after all of this time. What could he possibly have to say to you? Did he want to inform you of a new girlfriend before the news caught wind of it? Did he want to come up with some dumb excuse to tell you he was sorry?

It made you scoff slightly, but the tug at your heart let you know that it wouldn’t be unwelcome.

You couldn’t deny it. As much as his leaving had hurt you, you missed him more than anything.

You wanted another chance with him, one that you weren’t sure you would get. And the thought of him coming back to you was comforting. Like maybe it wasn’t your fault. Or maybe you had done enough to win him back.

Wishful thinking.

You had lost track of time, once again, but were snapped out of your daze by knocking on your door.

What? Why would anyone be here?

You sighed. It was probably just some random person selling some random product or something.

More knocking. More insistent. You sighed, standing up and silently groaning at the soreness you felt in your body. Not necessarily from overuse, but more so from underuse. You stood you slowly, walking quietly over to your door.

More knocking.

You made it to the door and glanced through the peephole you had, eyes widening and a small gasp leaving your mouth.

Why the fuck was Bucky here?

More knocking.

You ran a hand down your face. Knowing him, he wouldn’t leave. But why did it go from calling straight to ‘I’m coming to your door’? As if he hadn’t been the one to leave you?

More knocking.

You swallowed dryly. “Why are you here?” you called out through the door.

Bucky let out a breath. “I just want to talk to you”

You shook your head on the other side of the door, wondering if you should let him speak. As if he wasn’t already living rent-free in your mind.

“Please y/n.”

You set your face hard, pulling the door open. At least you would get to say your piece to him.

“Now you wanna talk? Fine. Let’s talk.” you said, coldly.

Bucky was slightly taken aback, though he couldn’t blame you. He took in your appearance, exhaustion seeming to overtake you. Dark circles under your eyes, pale skin, you just - all life seemed to be drained from you. He scratched the back of his neck nervously before he asked quietly, “Can I come in?”

You stepped to the side, silently allowing him in, closing the door behind you. You crossed your arms over your chest and shrugged slightly. “What do you want Barnes?

“I’m sorry,” he said. You scoffed slightly, shaking your head and looking away. “Y/n look at me, please. I fucked up.”

“Well it took you long enough to figure that one out didn’t it?” you snapped, looking at him.

“Y/n please -”

“Tell me, when exactly did you figure out that maybe, just maybe, you should say you were sorry?”

“Y/n please - “

“Who was the girl? The one in the bar from a few days after we had broken up? The one you were hitting on over a couple of drinks?”

“The… what?”

“When did you feel the slightest bit of regret? When did you change your mind and decide that you didn’t want to leave?”

“I never wanted to leave you!” he exclaimed. “Can you please just listen to me?”

You looked at him, anger in your eyes but you closed your mouth. You gave him a look that said ‘I’m listening.’

He took a deep breath. “The woman at the bar was an old friend of Sam’s. He had introduced the two of us at one point. I was at a bar one night and and she came over to say hello and stayed for one drink. It’s nothing more than that.”

You took a breath. Situations could definitely be read wrong. You knew it had probably been nothing.

“When we first got together we had talked about me leaving for missions. Long-distance, unpredictable times, dangerous missions. A lot of people have a hard time keeping that going.”

“And I knew that and was okay with it.”

“Let me finish, please.” he pleaded. “I knew you knew the risks but I’m not sure I was as ready as I thought I was. I left and suddenly I couldn’t talk to you because I was worried for your safety. I couldn’t be there for you in all the ways I wanted to be. In all the ways you deserved. I just...you didn’t deserve that. You deserved so much more than that.”

You felt tears prick your eyes. “You already told me that. When you left. What’s really going on?”

He shook his head slightly. “ Sam’s sister had gotten a call with a threat towards her and her children. I couldn’t put you at risk. These people, they were super soldiers just like me. I had a few close calls with serious injuries. And I realized that if I got hurt I couldn’t protect you. I couldn’t let you get hurt and I couldn’t let you worry about whether or not I would come home alive. I thought… I thought it’d be less painful for both of us if we stopped seeing each other before that happened.”

You shook your head slightly. “Why couldn’t you tell me that?” you said, a little more softly.

“I don’t know”

You shook your head. “You’re gonna have to do a lot better than I don’t know.”

“I - “ He sighed slightly. “I was scared. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I was scared that I was going to lose you.”

“So you gave me up?” you asked.

“And made the biggest mistake of my entire life.”

You looked to the side and bit your lip slightly. “You know I thought it was my fault?” you turned your face back to Bucky’s confused one. “I thought I wasn’t good enough for you. That if I was enough you wouldn’t have left. Or if I was better you would’ve come back.”

He shook his head and started walking towards you to comfort you. “It was never your fault angel -”

You backed up slightly. “You don’t get to call me that. Not right now, not yet at least.”

He looked hurt slightly, but he nodded. After a few moments of silence, you scoffed slightly.

“You know, as much as I hate to admit it, I fell apart these past few weeks. Told myself that the only thing I wanted and needed was having you come back. And here you are and...I don’t know, Bucky.” you shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or think, you broke up with me because you were afraid of hurting me? I - “ you rubbed your eyes. “I just… I get it, but I just wish we could’ve had this conversation weeks ago, Buck.”

“Does this mean we’re done?” he asked timidly.

“I… I don’t know. I just…. I think i need a little bit of time. Please. Just some time to think.”

He nodded, though he looked slightly disappointed. “Yeah, of course.” you nodded, walking him over to the door, opening it. He turned around. “Is it okay to give you a hug, y/n?”

You thought about it for a moment before nodding, letting him wrap his arms around your waist as you looped them around his neck. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, tears forming in your eyes as you realized how much you missed this. How much you needed this. When he went to pull away, you held him a little more tightly before letting him go.

He smiled at you before turning to leave. “Take as much time as you need, y/n.”

You gave him the smallest of smiles back. “I’ll see you later Bucky.”

And with that, you closed the door behind you, not having a clue what any of this meant. This didn’t make it okay by any means, but maybe, just maybe, the two of you could start fresh. Together.

[pluvillion]

i know i barely write here but i guess it's fine because there's really nothing much to write anyways. i'm not going to school (pandemic yup yup), nothing dramatic is happening - every day is the same as the last. i got a Logitech G29 as my birthday present, i graduated high-school, and that's about it.

however, there IS one thing that happened: i got accepted to a university - my alma mater to be exact. and it's not here in Puerto Princesa, it's in Lipa City.

yes, you heard that right. i am set to leave my province to attend college at Lipa City.

let me reiterate just in case the one above was too vague for it to sink in: i am moving out of Palawan and will live in Lipa City for college. it's the whole "moving out" trope found in countless stories, but this time I am doing it with my mother, my brother, and my grandparents. i am ACTUALLY doing the thing that i've been wanting to do since i was a kid!

i remember that 5th grade artwork i did on that 1/2 (was it?) illustration board with my name's acronyms and stuff. i suck at illustrating back then but there was a small house on the lower right and buildings and shit in the distance. in the middle was a car travelling to the city on the road that connected both locations. i was depicting us moving out of the house as a family and onto Manila (hence the buildings). i've always wanted to live the ACTUAL city life (not the one here as it's too "small" to even be considered as a legit city) like my friends and people in social media did.

i've waited and waited and waited for that moment to come, but it didn't arrive. a lot of shit already happened since then. it's never too late, of course, because it actually DID happen, and it was ME who caused it (/pos).

it's surreal to me that within a snap, we're set to leave and live a brand new life in a new place. no one knows us there (except for a few relatives) so i guess it's my chance to be who i've always wanted to be without shittons of relatives trying to pinpoint what i'm exactly doing because "it's not what we remembered you to be when you were a kid". a fresh restart, y'know? if i was unconfident to hell and back here in Puerto Princesa, i sure as shit won't be in Lipa. i'll make sure to lose enormous amount of weight and get rid of this balloon in my stomach so i can style myself without looking like a fatass. yeah i know being skinny is normalized here a lot but honestly i personally prefer being AT LEAST physically fit - i'm addicted to clothes like how i am to cars, i just don't have the money to buy the exact clothes i wanted (at least i can get around with cars via videogames which is a huge plus).

i know we still have a long way to go before we leave (hopefully by next year the pandemic eases instead of worsens), but if i managed to wait, say, 8-9 years to move places, then it won't hurt to wait another year more. besides, we're finally getting our fiber wifi so i can now do whatever i couldn't back when we still had the shitty wifi from Globe (thought i'd put that out haha)

i guess it's finally time for me to start counting down the days before going back to Manila? like i've said above, this won't be a returning trip; once we leave, there's no going back - i'm staying there until for good for a few years. i just hope fate doesn't have anything deadly prepared for me because i'd be paranoid if i had one... i still have dreams to pursue. who knows, maybe i'll do better to the point where i'll leave the country for school? time will tell.

anyways, i have been trying to post this shit since a few days ago but Tumblr won't let me because it's only JUST NOW where my brain started going haywire with my thoughts that a simple "talking to the air" won't do the trick.

besides, at least i have something to read back to when i finally move to Lipa. i can read all the stuff that happened during our final months of stay here in Palawan, the thoughts i had that i chose to write instead of letting the wind hear it, and reminisce what i could remember during the time i wrote a note because i know FOR SURE i'll be homesick when i get there. even just thinking about it makes me homesick already, and we haven't even left yet.

fun fact: it's the same thing i did back when dad announced we'll be visiting him in December 23rd. the moment he told us we'll be going to Manila at December 3rd, i made an oath to write all the shit i can write so when the day arrives, i have something to read in the plane. another fun fact: i actually did. i even wrote a letter to my future self because i'm extra like that.

now i just got accepted four days ago, so that means i can still build this journal the way i like it until the day we go back to Puerto Princesa, we ride a plane to Manila and a roadtrip to Lipa where I'll be staying at together with my mom, brother, and my grandparents for college for around four years or so.

i still can't believe i'm saying this for real. i usually only do shit like this as an imagine to get my excitement meter high but just enough so i don't disappoint myself because it won't really happen. i guess manifesting really does work haha.

that said, our wifi's finally getting connected tomorrow or two, my brother will get his own laptop so i can finally use mine again that he basically worn down (a broken hinge, one part of the monitor's casing had no glue anymore, etc.), and i think i'm gonna get both Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5.

also yeah, i'm definitely gonna be active on Tumblr even just for a short while. i know college is no joke.

[burgers-and-french-fries]

Taking Chances: Chapter Thirty Six.

Note: Hello my lovies, oh where to begin. So by now you will have seen that I am currently taking a break from Tumblr which is why this post has been scheduled for today.

On another note, I’m not sure when I’m going to be online on my other social sites as my laptop broke a week ago and my phone has decided to shoot itself to shit once more, meaning that I need to get myself some new devices. Thankfully though, my amazing mother has allowed me to use her phone/laptop if I need to but I don’t want to do that to her. 

So with all of that being said, I will still be around on my other social sites but not as much as I have been in the past.

I hope that you are all keeping well and staying safe.

Enjoy!

===

Waking up in her own bed was something that Nicola would never take for granted again. Now don’t get her wrong, she was so glad that Luna was able to get the treatment she needed to get better but the uncomfortable hospital beds just about drove her up the proverbial wall. Luna seemed to have settled down a fair amount since Nicola’s body had kicked into gear but if there was one thing that Nicola wanted to get rid of, it was the pain of things growing, baby feeding etc.

“Jasmine, do you have your lunch?” Nicola called up to the little girl. Jasmine came down stairs with the brightest smile on her face. She had made the baby and Nicola a card each while they were at the hospital but with the excitement of coming home, Jasmine had forgotten to give it to Luna.

“Here.” Jasmine said proudly as she handed Nicola the unevenly folded paper cards. Nicola took them with her free hand and attempted to hug Jasmine.

“I think we a few minutes before Taron comes to collect you for school, shall we go and have read of these?” Nicola asked, making Jasmine nod enthusiastically. Jasmine was the first to sit herself on the sofa while Nicola placed Luna in her rocker and sat down beside Jasmine on the sofa.

(This is something that I wrote with my left hand. It read: Get better baby Luna. The picture on the card is something that I drew with my left hand as well.)

“Look Luna, this one’s for you.” Nicola said, holding up the card for the infant to see. Jasmine giggled.

“Her eyes are closed.” She replied. Nicola turned her eyes to Jasmine in mock shock.

“They are?” Nicola asked. Jasmine nodded.

“Well now, that’s just rude.” Nicola teased, throwing her hands up playfully. Jasmine laughed and moved over to Luna.

“You can read it to her.” Jasmine suggested.

“Good thinking my girl.” Nicola replied, opening the card. Her heart melted at the little note Jasmine had written out.

“Get better baby Luna.” Nicola read out. She closed the card and opened her arms for Jasmine to run into so to speak. Jasmine took that chance to really hug her sister. Both Nicola and Jasmine enjoyed the cuddle so much, they jumped when there was a knock on the door.

“Read yours.” Jasmine said as she followed Nicola to the door.

(This is another thing that I wrote and drew with my left hand. It reads: Lina, I miss you!)

“How about I put our cards on the fridge and then when you come home, I’ll read it with you.” Nicola offered. Jasmine liked the sound of that and ran off to grab her school bag.

“She’ll just be a minute. Why don’t you come in.” Nicola said, allowing Taron and a very bouncy Mikey into the house out of the cold. Jasmine came back speedily and was ready to go.

“Can I see Luna?” Mikey asked. Nicola chuckled at his enthusiasm.

“You’ll be late Michael.” Taron said but Mikey was long gone, as was Jasmine.

“A few seconds won’t hurt.” Nicola told him. Taron smiled.

“Suppose not. How are you?” Taron questioned. Nicola shrugged.

“Sore and tired but that’s to be expected.” She replied just as the kids came back giggling their heads off.

“Luna farted.” Mikey said through his giggles. 

“I best get her nappy changed then.” Nicola spoke. Taron nodded and helped Jasmine get the rest of her things together before they left.

=

The traffic was moving pretty well that morning and Taron was able to get the kids to school with time to spare. This got the children excited because that meant that they had time to [play for a little bit before the bell rang.

“You two have a good day.” Taron said when they came back out of the room to say goodbye.

“We will.” Jasmine replied. Mikey nodded in agreement and hugged his father.

“I’ll see you this afternoon.” Taron told both Jasmine and Mikey. Both of them nodded and ran off once more to play with their friends before the day started.

Taron walked back to his car and jumped onto google to see if he could find any remedies that could possibly help Nicola. He tried to remember what kind of things Kate used when she was breastfeeding Mikey but he’d be damned if he could remember anything about that. Scratching his forehead, Taron turned his phone off and made his way to Tesco in the hopes that something there would jog his memory. 

It wasn’t until he was at a set of traffic lights, that he had an ah-ha moment. He could remember his mum telling Kate that cabbage was great for tenderness during feeding. He kept a hold on that thought and as soon as he arrived at his destination and got himself a trolley, he made a beeline for the cabbage.

“Bloody hell, that’s a lot of cabbage.” He mumbled to himself as he shook his head and slightly shrugged. Taron just put every kind of cabbage he could see in the trolley. This included the canned cabbage he found while he was looking at other food items that he required.

When the man had completed his mission, he packed up the back of his car and made his way back over to Nicola’s to drop everything off to her.

(I found this on Pinterest.ca and I was shocked to see that there was so many different types of cabbage. I thought I’d share this picture because it is quite interesting.)

=

By the time that Taron had pulled into her driveway, Luna was just starting to wake up for her feed. Nicola had barely sat down to get herself situated when a knock echoed through the house. Nicola groaned and got up. She gave Luna a soother to keep her satisfied until she could get rid of whoever was at the door.

“What the hell is all this?” Nicola asked when she opened the door to see Taron standing there with plastic bags in his hands.

“In first, answer later.” Taron replied, clearly in discomfort as some bag handles were cutting into his hands from their weight. Nicola took a bag or two from him and led him into the kitchen. 

Nicola attempted to place the bags on the counter but inwardly cringed when she felt a tiny trickle. Taron noticed the flush of pink on her cheeks and the look of awkwardness on her face.

“You alright?” He asked with concern. Nicola closed her eyes, sighed and nodded.

“Watch her please, I’ll be right back.” Nicola answered, hurrying off to the safety of the bathroom. Taron shook his head and took all the food out of the bags so that Nicola could just place the items where they belonged later.

(This is what Luna is wearing in this chapter as it’s November and chilly outside.)

He was almost done when Luna grew agitated and started whimpering. He barely had enough time to place the eggs on the counter when Luna went from her softer whimpers to ear-splittingly loud. 

As soon as Taron reached her, he gently picked Luna up and cradled her in his arms but the position did nothing to calm her; and if it was even possible, Luna screamed even louder. Knowing that she was most likely hungry, Taron bent his little finger and placed his knuckle to the baby’s lips. This seemed to do the trick as Luna started sucking vigorously. 

“There we go.” Taron said as he looked down at his daughter. He could feel his heart melt at the sight of her just as it had when he saw her for the first time, though seeing her without the small eye covers gave him a better view of her face and boy did she resemble him. There was no longer a doubt in his mind that this baby was his. 

It didn’t take long for Luna to figure out that there was no milk coming out of whatever she was sucking on which made her start to cry again.

“Give me a minute please Luna.” Nicola hollered from the upstairs bathroom. She had barely sat down when Luna started crying and of course that made her leak right through her top, so now she was having to quickly change and make herself presentable again before rushing back down to her child.

Taron softly chuckled at Nicola's response and laid Luna in his other arm before he began rocking Luna in the hopes that it would settle her just a little bit. The rocking didn’t work but as soon as Taron stepped up to the lounge room window, Luna’s crying dissipated somewhat.

(Minus the kiss on the cheek, this is how Taron is holding Luna up to the window.)

When Nicola had finished up, she made her way downstairs. She was glad that the crying stopped but she had wondered how Taron had defused the situation. Her question was answered when she peered around the corner to see Taron standing at the window with Luna in his arms. 

She could hear him asking Luna questions in a voice she hadn’t heard before but filled her heart with love. 

“Shall we go and check on mam?” Taron asked the baby one last time. Luna simply blinked slowly at him and that’s when Nicola made her presence known.

“Can I start calling you the baby whisperer?” Nicola teased, taking Luna from Taron. Taron rolled his eyes playfully.

“She just wanted to see the bird.” He replied. Nicola smirked and sat on the sofa.

“I’m going to unpack the rest of the groceries if you need me.” Taron said, making his leave. Nicola smiled and got herself and Luna ready for a feed.

=

“Right, she’s down now.” Nicola said, walking into the kitchen to find Taron boiling the kettle. She looked at him waiting for an explanation as to why he had bought her groceries for the next few weeks.

Taron got the hint and began to speak.

“I figured you may need some food, so I went shopping.” He answered. She raised her brow in amusement.

“You bought me cabbage?” She questioned, almost gagging at the thought of having to eat them.

“After telling me earlier that you were hurting, I remembered mam telling Kate that cabbage was a good remedy. I couldn’t remember what kind of cabbage to get though, so I got all of them.” He explained. Nicola felt a smile grow on her lips. She wanted to thank him but she knew her words would probably fail her so she did the next best thing.

She cautiously moved toward him and placed a gentle kiss to his cheek. The small gesture making both their stomachs flip with anticipation. 

“Thank you.” Nicola spoke in a hushed tone. 

The warmth of her breath against his cheek made Taron want to grab her and kiss her but he knew that he had to fight it. He didn’t want to jeopardize any chance of being with her again and he feared that if he pounced on her, he’d definitely lose her. Nicola’s mind on the hand whirled with the same what-ifs as Taron’s. She really wanted to kiss him but she didn’t know if she’d scare him off and after what he had done for her today, she’d hate for Luna to lose out on a father.

Glancing up into Taron’s eyes, Nicola was unsure of what she’d see; but when she saw that his eyes mirrored the same desire she felt within the very depths of her soul, she tenderly caressed his cheek and moved her hand until it was resting at the nape of his neck. Taron’s eyes slipped shut at the feel of her skin against his. He had desperately missed how perfectly her body fit against his, how her heartbeat seemed to magically sync to his own. He missed the sound of her laughter, the way she spoke his name so melodically, the way her perfume would send his mind into frenzy as though it was the drug he always craved but most of all, he missed the way her lips would meet his in a symphony of butterflies elegantly dancing around for only them to feel. 

As their faces drew closer together, Nicola could feel Taron’s shallow and shaky breath on her lips. This made her heart rate spike as the familiar sparks of arousal surged through her veins like nothing she had known before. She wanted to feel his lips on hers. No, she needed to feel his lips on hers.

“Please.” Nicola mumbled as her lips grazed Taron’s. Taron didn’t need to be told twice but when he went to close the gap, Nicola’s body slowly moved back; as though her brain wanted to test Taron to see how far he would go for her.

Taron allowed his hands to reach up to Nicola’s face and to the sides of her neck where he returned the tender touch Nicola had given him previously. His thumbs gently ran over her cheeks as he finally brought his lips to hers, kissing her delicately.

=

Meanwhile at school, Jasmine and Mikey sat in the classroom after Mikey had gotten hit in the face with a soccer ball during lunchtime recess. Normally Mikey would keep playing but this particular hit to the face caused the little boy to lose his first tooth. It was something that he didn’t expect which made him cry.

“It’s ok Mikey.” Jasmine told him, trying her best to comfort him. Mikey shook his head.

“It’s gone.” He cried. Jasmine gave him a hug in the hopes that it would help but when it didn’t, an idea popped into her head.

Jasmine gathered all of her strength in her index finger before hooking it behind one of her bottom teeth, ripping the little sucker clean out. She didn’t care that there was blood as all she cared about was the fact that Mikey had now stopped crying.

Ivy and Isla saw Jasmine’s actions and went to find their teacher.

“Well now, you two better come with me.” Mrs. Lewis said as she followed Ivy and Isla to where the toothless twins were. 

Once they reached the classroom, Mrs. Lewis had the children sit down while she filled out an accident report out for Mikey and made sure that Jasmine’s bleeding stopped.

“It’s not bleeding.” Jasmine announced as she showed her teacher the bloody tissue. Mrs. Lewis tried not to gag or cringe.

“Good to hear. Go throw that out and get yourself ready for class. Mikey, you can go with her.” The teacher said. The friends nodded and walked out of the room as though nothing happened. 

===

End Note: 

~I know that the situation between Mikey and Jasmine may seem unrealistic but in actual fact, I had a friend in primary school who had gotten a soccer ball to the face and it knocked his tooth out. The only difference with this scene is that Mikey cries and my friend didn’t.

~The whole scenario with Jasmine ripping her tooth out is something that I actually did to myself when I was around her age. My tooth was not at all loose and yes there was blood but for some odd reason, it didn’t really phase me.

===

Tag List: @sarahegerton96​ @dangerouslcve​ @hitmeonmytspot​ @holdmeclosertinytaron​ @superthiccthighssavelives​ @uniquebeautyqueen​ @dogmom2014​ @stronglyobsessed​ @rocknrollmadden​ @jolovesfandoms​ @dontblinkumightmiss​ @lovefortaron89​ @dragonstarre​ @hauntedflamingo​ @aberystwythboy​ @jobanan23​

[morgansyorkie]

We are really out here trying to “cancel” someone over a fucking ig post that may or may not have been liked!! (I say that because some say that his like comes up and some say his like doesn’t whatever) BUT ARE WE FUCKING FOR REAL RIGHT NOW!! Good fucking luck trying to do that. I’m about to get real for a second and if you don’t approve or like what i have to say than so be it, block or unfollow me. But listen up, knock if off with the unnecessary drama, this doesn’t concern you or anyone else for that matter. Nolan didn’t do a damn thing wrong, he is allowed to have his own opinions about certain things and he doesn’t need to please anyone of you either. He is allowed to post and like whatever he wants to on HIS SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT! (key word here is HIS not YOURS but HIS) i highly doubt that every little thing he does when it comes to instagram he is thinking oh no i shouldn’t like this or that or post this or that because the tumblr and twitter world might cancel me, he can give two fucks what any of us thinks, as along as it not hurting his family, friends, etc he doesn’t care (none of us care what we do on social media) Sorry to say it but this is the real world here people everyone is going to have different opinions on certain matters. ALSO WE DONT EVEN KNOW IF ITS HIM WHO THE GC WAS REFERING TO! So again, we don’t know the moral of the story nor do we need to, it doesn’t concern any of us. Holy shit please stop trying to poke and pride into people’s lives and business when it fucking doesn’t concern you! Honestly go get a damn hobby and life, go read a book, go make a TikTok i don’t know but stop trying to “cancel” people for fucks sake. You’re making yourself look ridiculous and stupid here sorry to say it. It also makes people like myself and others who follows Nolan for the sake of the game and his playing more so than his “looks” want to bash our heads into a wall and scream our lungs out! Like get out of dreamland and realize that no one is perfect, that we all make mistakes and have flaws! Secondly, Nolan is one of the most kind hearted souls that you will ever interact with or meet in your life. He is the real deal, he doesn’t try to put on a front for anyone. Lastly, if you wanna “cancel” him than so be it because he doesn’t need the support from “fans” like you anyways. Now you wanna know why celebs, athletes and basically anyone who has a name to themselves want to keep their lives private or want to get rid of their social media accounts, it’s because of people like you who again poke and pride too much into their lives, again just let them be. He is allowed to live his life they way he wants to and if your gonna judge and hate him on something that might not have anything to do with him than shame on you!! He deserves love and support from fans who are going to be with him through thick and thin, he is battling a lot right now so he doesn’t need this shit or need to be attacked for no apparent reason. Stop causing unnecessary drama, just because you want to start something and want your 15 seconds of fame or want a name to yourself or because you wanna be heard. At the end of the day his main concern is to get onto the ice with his team mates and play the sport that he loves so much again! That’s all I’m gonna say...so take it as you want to!

[shijiujun]

history3 ep10 summary - POOR SHAO FEI AND TANG YI BB, this is what heartbreak looks like

I JUST ABOUT DIED. I DID. THE LAST PART WAS MAD - just this 30 seconds alone carried the entire fucking episode

We are at the halfway mark - Part of me doesn’t want it to end at all but I need to see the birthday cake and domestic scenes ASAP!! Currently I’m just enjoying the ride and so glad we get to see Chris and Jake and Andy and Kenny and everyone of those other hot and excellent actors in this show. I’ve never done a GIF or subtitled in all my years on tumblr before History3 - life changing this is what this show is and I’m so happy we’re all doing this together! Let’s make it through the halfway mark together omgosh excited guys!!!!!

Shopping scene with Shao Fei + Hong Ye: Hong Ye is telling SF to walk faster they go into a department store and she keeps changing clothes OMG LOL THEY ARE SO CUTE TGT!!! She wears smth with ruffles and then asks SF how it looks and then he’s like ‘why do u look like a seaweed’ and she’s like ‘who’s a seaweed you’re a seaweed’ and then she dances LOL and then LOL HE FELL ASLEEP WHILE SHOPPING WITH HER AND LOST HER omg Shao Fei seriously

They’re playing a game on the escalator this is the funniest shit and OF COURSE she brings him to a lingerie shop and omg Shao Fei so poor thing just sits there and OMG YAS HONG YE SISTER-BROTHER RIVALRY and she buys him UNDERWEAR and she’s like “hang on a second, this is too big for you, you need a smaller one” LOL BURN

Carpark/shooting scene: They’re almost like friends or something, although later after we see the hong ye and bodyguard ah de scene you’ll realise why she was speaking to shao fei like that (because she knew smth was going to happen and she thought everything was going to go to plan but who knew they were coming with guns) and anw, then the bullets start going off and shao fei protects her with all of his body like OH MY GOD - And wow the angle of the shot and how it struck SF is totally wrong and omggg this scene was faster than I thought JESUS CHRIST - is it just me or did Shao Fei get hit on the wrong side? Either they missed a scene or the bullet came from elsewhere

and then we get the scene of tang yi storming into the hospital and he goes straight for hong ye first, hugs her as she cries etc. and then hot doctor is there and when hot doctor is NOT SMILING  YOU KNOW SHIT IS ABOUT TO GO DOWN - anyway, the nurse tells hot doctor that the surgery has been prepped, and then hot doctor nods and says ‘let’s go’ - and that’s when tang yi REMEMBERS AND LOOKS UP - “is that for meng shao fei?” And his look of absolute regret is ridiculous

and hot doctor just somberly nods 

Police chief STILL DOESNT KNOW THAT SHAO FEI HAS BEEN SHOT omg he’s going around doing his usual shit and everyone is clearing shit with him and fuck he misses shao fei so much I like that they finally show that shao fei is useful in the office and everyone is dependent on him and then suddenly Yu Qi turns up because she somehow got the call that shao fei is in the hospital

Oh goddddd Tang Yi’s face as he sits there AND LOL Dao yi (glasses guy) knows police chief quite well he called him Brother Bao, and tells him to calm down and they will take care of everything but POLICE CHIEF AINT HAVING NONE OF THAT BULLSHIT he pushes dao yi aside and this is one of the only times he can legit grab a mob boss by the neck and not get shot at after - police chief loves Shao Fei so much you can tell he totally lost it and Hong Ye genuinely feels bad and she’s saying sorry over and over to him as tang yi sits there catatonic - tang yi is totally quiet

also not sure if you guys caught it but the older guy in the investigative team, the one who always kind of says smth subtly bad about shao fei, he shot a look to bodyguard ah de when police chief was confronting tang yi in the hospital - they are totally up to something, corrupt police!!!!

The rest of the investigative team - LOL Zhao zi: “wow I’ve never seen police boss chief grab someone so much larger than him by the neck” - Yu Qi really likes Shao Fei, she’s crying by herself at the stairs and police chief is the one who’s standing by Shao fei’s door the moment he’s out of surgery and he scoffs “what ‘they’ll take care of everything’? the moment they heard shao fei was going to pull through they all left’- he tells zhao zi that they’ll start investigating who the fuck was behind the shooting and reminds them all to be careful

Captain Shi: “those who dare to touch any one from the investigative team, I’ll bring them all back to the police station!!!!”

OMG WE GET THE SCENE WHERE TANG YI IS HOTLY WALKING AND RIPPING OFF HIS JACKET AND OH JESUS CHRIST BRASS KNUCKLES?!!! Anw here’s the gem oh my god: Tang yi comes in where the culprit is already seated and he tells everyone to get the fuck out (OMG YOU KNOW HE MEANS BUSINESS) 

Ah De is like ‘boss, this is a small thing, let me do it’ - and he’s so damn insistent on interrogating the culprit himself even though tang yi is literally ready to set fire on the bitch you know and i’m like AH DE THAT IS SO NOT SMART YOU WANNA DIE?!

and well, we all called it - tang yi hears that and he’s like wtf and he gets mad, hauls bodyguard ah de off his feet and slams him against the wall and yells: “SMALL THING?! HE TOUCHED MY PEOPLE, AND YOU CALL IT A SMALL THING?!”

and bodyguard is like fuckkkk: “yes i’m sorry boss, i said the wrong thing, i’ll leave now”

and then he goes out and hovers by the door while tang yi puts on his brass knuckles and starts punching the dude who is yelling a bit like... not realistically HAHAHAHA - and omg Jack hit it right on the nail, he asked Brother De why he looks so worried and ‘jokingly’ asks, “why, do u know the person inside?” And Brother De is so angry and defensive - jack totally knows what is up

Brother de and Hong Ye meet up and here we find out that they ordered the hit on shao fei in a sense to get rid of him - they wanted to show tang yi that shao fei can’t protect anyone and then chase him away, but they were supposed to come teach shao fei a lesson with like wooden sticks and not guns - hong ye was a bit stunned by that as well and she asked ah de like wtf did you really want to kill me?! and ah de is like confused also, he doesn’t really know how the plan went wrong?! and hong ye is like, whatever, i will cooperate with you only up to here, if tang yi manages to get any answers, it’s all on you (like not cool hong ye, tang yi would totes forgive you if you just admitted it i think)

anyway, switch to the balcony scene with tang yi and jack, where jack asks who it was that ordered the hit, and tang yi says: “chen wen hao”

okay so my theory is that maybe chen wen hao really has smth to do with this - he kind of derailed the plan and changed it to legitly wanting to kil hong ye and shao fei (more hong ye than shao fei more likely) - but right now they dont know it they just think that they’re safe and their story checks out

Okay so Hong Ye and Dao Yi - Gosh she’s kind of a brat but I get where she’s coming from. anyway she leaves brother de and then dao yi is waiting for her in the carpark - the man knows he way better than she knows herself, and i think he knows that she had something to do with the shooting, but he didn’t say anything except to hint that she better leave shao fei up to tang yi and stop trying to interfere. hong ye is adamant that shao fei is a different kind of person from them, and dao yi is like: “that’s for the boss to decide. the way he treats him... shao fei is different to him”

OH MY GOD THANK YOU SOMEONE SAYING IT AS IT IS FINALLY NO MORE SUBTLE LOOKS AND SMILES SOMEONE SAID IT

and anw, hong ye manages to make this entire thing about her and how dao yi doesn’t love her - sister, i really get you and dao yi really needs to get his shit together, but srsly, a man just got shot for you because you were unhappy with his presence - and gosh unrequited (actually requited) love, but i get her in this part

but seriously, i get that she want shao fei out of the way but they way she did it was totally wrong, does she not know that tang yi is soft for him and cares for him like he has no one else before? she was willing to hurt him to make a point, and then ah de is - gosh dude get a grip

AND OMGGGGGG TANG YI’S FACE AS HE IS BY SHAO FEI’S BEDSIDE - this is what heartbreak looks like guys, he looks like he’s saying goodbye and his fucking expression - wow Chris did a fucking good job he totally looks heartbroken and as if shao fei died or smth, he’s holding his hand and air-tracing his nose and he looks like he’s going to cry - HE REALLY LOVES HIM GUYS - the emotion was really right on point

(and lol the chinese audience - they were scolding tang yi during the first part of the ep because he didn’t seem to have much of a reaction to shao fei’s injury and then when the last part came everyone went BATSHIT CRAZY)

what the fuck is going to happen next episode? i ask, but i know already - tang yi is getting ready to say goodbye to shao fei and push him away because he realised how dangerous it is for shao fei to be around him BUT OUR FAVE CHARACTERS WILL FIND SOME WAY TO BE TOGETHER AGAIN NO WORRIES I DOUBT THEIR BREAKUP WILL LAST MORE THAN AN EP

[robotsandramblings]

Hey so I was wondering if there's issues of the lost light comics, last stand of the wreckers, etc. that you would recommend. Really wanting to start reading comics & it looked like you have a good knowledge of them. Thanks :)

i hope this hasn’t been sitting in my inbox for too long??? tumblr didn’t notify me of it, as usual (-.-) sorry friend! i would love to talk to you about TF comics!!! :D

first off, two handy resources: 1) my comics FAQ page, which i haven’t updated in a while, but it’s useful if you’re brand new to the comics and have questions about the basics; and 2) this wonderful up-to-date list of all the TF comics in chronological order.

i think i can safely say, on my behalf and that of most TF comic fans, that below is a good “starter pack”, and/or fandomwide favourites:

Megatron Origin

Drift #1-4 + spotlight

All Hail Megatron

Last Stand of the Wreckers

The Death of Optimus Prime

More Than Meets The Eye (MTMTE)

Robots in Disguise (RiD) and The Transformers (ex-RiD)

and then from there, you get all sorts of other series as spinoffs, side series, continuations, etc: Windblade, Empire of Stone, Til All Are One (TAAO), Optimus Prime, Lost Light, Sins / Reqiuem of the Wreckers, etc..

personally i’d recommend you start with the abovementioned, and then you can go back and tackle the rest (which i’m still trying to do lol).

for those curious, under the readmore i’ll include a more thorough list of what you should read, what is “good but not great,” and others i’ve read:

Megatron Origin #1-4

Drift #1-4

Infiltration/Escalation/Devastation - not bad; i think these are barely, if ever, referred to in future series

Stormbringer - not bad, imo

Maximum Dinobots - i still haven’t read this yet because i suck but i think it’s worthwhile!

Spotlight: Drift

All Hail Megatron

Last Stand of the Wreckers

Last Stand of the Wreckers hardcover extras (Bullets, Dead Men’s Boots,character bios, Escape, Zero Point, In Word and Deed) - they’re really good! just prose, not comic form

The Transformers “Ongoing” series - not too bad, not overly great; a few events might be referred to in later series? nothing monumental

Spotlight: Megatron - it so good

Ironhide miniseries - never read, but i think i heard it‘s good?

The Death of Optimus Prime

More than Meets the Eye and Robots in Disguise -- they happen concurrently for the first 22 issues (honestly I read all of MTMTE first, then went back and did RiD. you do you!)

Dark Cybertron -- MTMTE & RiD combine into a crossover event. honestly i wasn’t a big fan, most people weren’t i don’t think, but it’s significant enough to the story timeline i guess lol

Windblade “Vol. 1″ (4 issues)

at issue #34/35, Robots in Disguise changes name to The Transformers (aka ex-RiD)

Combiner Wars -- mini event that contains issues from ex-Rid and from the second Windblade series

Drift: Empire of Stone - side series of Drift and Ratchet; a fan favourite!

Combiner Hunters

Sins of the Wreckers

The Transformers Holiday Special

“Lost Light”- More than Meets the Eye essentially ends at #53, and then the next “season” starts anew under the title “Lost Light”

Till All Are One - essentially takes over from The Transformers/ex-RiD

then a bunch of weird crossover stuff happens, between Transformers and other Hasbro series. personally, I’ve avoided all of them, as I have little interest.

Optimus Prime - haven’t gotten this caught up yet. it’s part of the ex-RiD/TAAO side, perhaps branching off from TAAO? side story? i hear it’s good though!

Requiem of the Wreckers

Unicron - crossover(?) miniseries grand finale of everything

MAKE SURE YOU save Lost Light #25 for after the Unicron series!!! (and maybe Optimus Prime #25?)

any of the “annuals”, you’ll want to read. the spotlights are hit-and-miss: some are good, some are terrible. there are a few that are more significant to the timeline of events, some are just random whatever. honestly, i’ve just been picking my fave characters! if you want a more “necessary spotlights” list, i can pull one together.

[lordmattuk]

How do you stop being depressed?

Dear God, I wish I knew the answer to that one. I do know that given enough time each bout of depression passes. Sometimes fast; sometimes slow. It is what you do while you wait that makes the difference.

I do not have a story from my life to give you as an answer but here is everything I know about living with depression (in no particular order except item zero):

0. Depression is a liar

Depression tries to say things like, “this is never going to get better, I’m the only one, no one will understand, people will think I am weak…” Thoughts like these are lies depression tells you to keep you down.

Depression is a liar. Do not listen to it.

1. Talking helps

Being honest with friends and family you can trust makes the journey easier. You still have to go through it but know there are people that will listen makes it seem less difficult.

I thought I was the only one that felt the way I did. So I hid it. All through my teenage years, I kept my depression secret. It turned out though that my sister, my dad, and my uncle all faced similar demons.

2. Get rid of stressful people and drama queens

Boy or girl, drama queens just sap the strength you should use to face depression. While it might feel like doing the right thing to help everyone - you cannot save the drowning if you cannot swim yourself. 

A few years ago (on Facebook) started using memes like the one below. The strange thing was the very needy people I was always ploughing all my mental energy into helping just went and found someone else to ask for help. They didn’t want my help, they were addicted to the attention I was giving out. Like vampires sucking my energy away.

For when you are once more stuck between two friends who have (once more) fallen out over something

When they can’t get a hit of sympathy from me, they just go somewhere else and try again.

The result is, I feel healthier and less stressed. Depression is now a little easier to bet without that drag factor.

3. Deal with crap that is bothering you

Nothing powers up your depression like crap you need to deal with but are pretending is not there. Be it a relationship that has to end, a commitment you should withdraw from, a painful memory you need to grieve over, or whatever. Find a safe way to unpack that baggage and leave it behind you.

4. Sleep more

I cannot stress this enough - depression is worse when you are tired. Get a good nights rest. Take naps if you have to. Get good sleep.

5. Give yourself permission to take the day off

Some days I just say screw it to social media, party invites, and housework. I just sit around in my PJs and catch up on Netflix. Not because I am lazy (I am that too but this is not why) but because sometimes I just need to decompress and do something that makes me happy.

A day off for me means not looking at the news (Brexit worries me no end). I disconnect and just live in the moment (which means I watch Netflix or dip into my DVD collection). Sometimes I go out for food or a beer with a good friend.

There have been days where I get up with a low spoon count and no motivation. I take care of whatever will cause pain if not done now and then I chill and so serious amounts of nothing much. You’ll be surprised just how much can be rescheduled.

Of course, if you have a nine to five job, you cannot pull a sick day too often. For that, you will have to get your doctor to sign off on a few days to a week of recovery. Which means telling your doctor what is going on (also a great way to get support).

6. Talk to your doctor

Getting support from your doctor lightens the load. I never would have learned about mindful meditation had I not tried this.

7. People who say “why don’t you just cheer up”.

These people suck. There is not much you can do other than find better friends. They don’t understand and if re-educating them sounds like too much work, find friends that do understand. People who just don’t get it should be carefully managed and kept at a distance.

8. Advice on social media is far from perfect

Remember what I said about talking t your doctor? Doctors are experts. Tumblr users are… Who knows? We’re weirdos on the web. Sometimes we can help but do please double check with an actual expert.

9. Find someone else who is going through the same thing

Being able to explain what you are going through with someone who truly gets it - because they’ve been there - is wonderful. Just knowing you are not alone makes it easier. It beats the lies depression tells you by showing you the truth. That alone makes it all seem much less terrible.

On top of that, you can feel listened to and heard - boy does that help.

Furthermore, you can both share insights on ways to cope. Truly the best part of the deal.

10. It does get better.

Over time, depressions tricks just seem less effective. The cloud is just the same but I seem to be hurt a little less by it each year. The other benefit of getting older is that you can level up in kicking depression to the curb. 

Depression still mounts some nasty attacks sometimes but it has never beaten me for good.

11. Get a cat or dog

This might be me but right now I have a soft warm cat (Molly) laying on me and I feel just a little bit better because of it. 

12. Socialising can help

I’m an introvert but I found that my DnD and Pathfinder games lift my spirits. I’m pretty sure it is the socialisation and not the dragon-slaying that helps. 

That said slaying dragons with a group of people you see every week is most satisfying. Try that too. Seriously, tabletop RPGs are the best.

13. Did I mention how helpful sleep is?

Sometimes a power nap can hot reset on strong or overwhelming feelings. It can just be the case that allowing yourself a short cry and then a nap, lets you get back to your day. That works for me.

14. Music

I have playlists that I use that can help a lot. 

Some are full of songs that recognise negative feelings, pain, and suffering. I find them cathartic. 

Others remind me of times I have had a lot of joy. A surprising number of those are themes from favourite shows.

I’ve no idea if this will work for you but try it out if you get a chance and see if it works for you. Sometimes a good playlist can kick depression right in its stupid face.

15. Rewatch favourite shows

I read somewhere that when we watch shows we are familiar with we enjoy them differently. The stress and release of finding out what will happen are replaced with something similar to the feeling of seeing a treasured friend. Maybe it is just me, but I have some shows I have seen certain seasons of many times.

Some shows (Red Dwarf, Bleach, iZombie, Star Trek DS9, etc.) have episodes that I can quote line for line.

16. Look after your health

Take care of yourself. Show your own self some love and care. I’m not really sure why this helps but it does. Pain, sickness, and generally being run down make coping with depression harder. I guess that I do have a clue about that after all.

Some people find yoga helps. When my body was younger, I liked running. I can’t run now do to an arthritic bad spine and I miss it.

17. Nice food

Talking of showing yourself some love. Treat yourself to something nice once ins a while. For me, that is pizza, bacon and eggs, or chocolate ice cream. Man, that is the way to say “I love you” to me.

I would not be surprised if Bacon might one day turn out to have magic properties from which we will develop a cure for depression. Even if it does not - bacon is still awesome. 

Except for pizza. For some reason, they always put really dry tasteless bacon on pizza where I live.

18. If it gets too much tell someone

When depression is loudest, never try to ride it out without telling someone. Tumblr does not count.

19. Never drink depressed

Booze is not the answer. For that reason, when depression is very bad I drink nothing stronger than a tea or coffee. Trust me on this one.

20. It is okay to sometimes be not okay

Give yourself permission to feel low. Don’t hide it but don’t let yourself get dragged down by it either.

21. It is not okay to stay not okay

If the depression spell lasts without relenting, seek help. That’s bad and you deserve the best support there is available to you. It can often be the last thing you feel like doing but after a week or two of feeling low and staying home, something more serious may be wrong and you must get help. You deserve to be happy sometimes too.

22. Enjoy the little victories

Take time to really bask in the glow of the smaller wins. I find that gives me the strength to go and get the next win.

23. Your job is NOT to make other people happy

On no account is it ever okay for anyone to make you feel that their happiness is your responsibility. File people like that with the drama queens - in the past.

Trying to conform to the expectations of others is the leading cause of making depression worse than it needs to be. A close second is trying to please everyone. I have no data at all to back that up with but I am pretty sure it is true.

24. Surround yourself with people that know the real you and still like you

Everyone else can stick it where the sun never shines. Seriously, people that know and like the real you are worth their weight in gold. Everyone else... Not so much.

25. It is okay not have the answers

I am 100% sure there is more stuff I know and cannot think of and 100% sure that there is a lot I don’t know and probably should. I’m still learning too.

[notesonleaves]

update (after a yr)

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted here. I’ve simply gotten out of the habit of blogging on Tumblr, mostly because I post on Discord and other fora these days, but now that Tumblr has banned a lot of content (while continuing to run poorly in many ways), the platform seems to be declining in earnest. In any case, here’s some books/tv shows/whatever that I’ve been watching:  

Houseki no Kuni (anime):  This is really worth seeing because it does CG animation fairly well (especially with the sense of space and action scenes), and it’s nice to see the characters in color. Would be great to have a sequel, especially when the manga is finished, although given the glacial pace, that will be awhile. 

Advisors Alliance (season 1, up to episode 30 or so):  I watched this on my own up until episode 20 or so and am now rewatching and beyond in a fairly leisurely way with a friend. I’d like to watch the second season if I can figure out how to find it. (The first season is on Youtube). Wish I spoke Chinese (or even read it, given that there are Chinese subtitles). The other thing which really gets me is that although the real title also adds that it’s about the great military advisor, Sima Yi, he uh, in the first season does not seem to do much military advising at all, other than going on a diplomatic mission to convince Sun Quan to ally with Cao Cao so they can get rid of Guan Yu. Which is not a small thing, but I think it gives a misleading impression of what the show is about, especially when a major subplot is civil service hiring reform (whee!). 

Cells at Work (anime):  If you’ve ever wanted to watch a pretty fluffy show about, surprisingly, mainly the immune system, this is the anime for you! Not much to say about it otherwise. 

How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read (book):  An enjoyable exercise in sophistry/trolling. The philosophical author concludes that all books, including the ones we have actually read, are books that we haven’t read. Given that is true, this book is really how to talk about all books. 

Crazy Rich Asians trilogy:  This was better than I expected, since the author clearly loves Trollope and other 19th century comedy of manners sorts of books and is trying his hand at writing a modern version. It suffers from the common flaw (?) of these books that the main characters are often the most boring, especially since the real point is to do these small portraitures of the various types of insane wealthy folk. (Astrid and Kitty have better stories, I feel) The writing feels more convincing when he focuses on Singapore itself, rather than the other settings. 

A Court of Thorns and Roses (trilogy):  This was worse than I expected. When I read these I wanted to write a blog entry about them, but I never got around to them. I started to read them because I was intrigued by one of the plot developments I’d read about. This series is either YA or Adult Fantasy, depending on which country it is published and who you ask, and some aspects of the early story remind me of the hunting scenes in the Hunger Games, but much of that is swept away later in favor of it becoming a big epic fantasy series set in fairyland. What is wrong with these books? I am not entirely sure. I think it’s partially the prose, and partially that the writer has good ideas but fails on the structure and execution, and a lot of the endless beautiful and powerful fairies etc. is harder to pull off than it looks. Many of the plot important scenes feel perfunctory and unconvincing, although the more fairy tale like scenes often are pretty effective. I feel like someone out the probably has written something that does explain what are the problem(s) but I can’t find the post. 

The Shaman and the Heresiarch:  A New Interpretation of the Li Sao:  The Li Sao is one of the long poems in the Songs of Chu, and is often interpreted to be about Qu Yuan’s problems in his career as an official. This is really interesting as it argues that the poem is mainly about spirit possession and conflict between factions of Confucians and shamans. 

Lust, Commerce, and Corruption:  An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai:  A translation of an anonymous Edo period text, which was probably by a low ranking samurai who acted as a sort of lawyer. The author is fairly conservative and upset about what he sees as the corruption of the Edo period state, especially the rise of the merchants and move to urban society. 

[rottenbrainstuff]

I noticed in the tags for one of your posts that you said Canada is heading down the same kind of path the US is. Would you mind explaining that to me? I haven't heard about that kind of thing going on but as someone who's major life goal is to move to Canada to be with her lover this sounds pretty terrifying. No pressure if you don't want to discuss that kind of thing though, I generally use Tumblr as an escape for this kind of shit so I totally understand.

Sure I can explain what I mean.This is long, guys, and I'm on mobile, so I apologize.I mean. First of all. I think I might be exaggerating a bit, our politics are always less extreme than the USA and I think they always will be. Our government is organized differently. But a lot of people, Canadians included, have this idea that Canada is this magic land of polite people and free healthcare and we're so much better than the US, and that's just really honestly not true.And I am getting worried about our political situation.First of all, Canada is not and never has been a magic perfect land where there is no racism and everyone is lovely. Our government has a shameful history dealing with indigenous people. We took entire generations of children away from their families and put them in residential schools and beat their culture out of them. We stuck them onto reserves where the conditions were terrible. There's been a huge problem with native women going missing and the police don't care, they don't devote the resources to investigating. And google starlight tours. That's a fun little thing where cops would grab a drunk native, drive them way the hell out on the highway, and just dump them off in the middle of nowhere, at night, in the winter, to let them find their way back to town in the cold. People have died from that. They deal with a ton of social issues now and there's a lot of racist sentiment against natives and it makes me want to scream, like, do you not understand, we did this to them? We broke their culture and all this shit you're complaining about is the fallout from that.We had Japanese internment camps during WW2 just like the US. After 9/11 we had a sharp increase in anti-Muslim bullshit too. There's rural areas in southern Alberta with "a proudly pro life community" signs stuck along the highway. Our government does stupid shit too. Our education didn't get gutted as bad as in the US, but my province made deep cuts to education funding in the 80s and 90s and TO THIS DAY we're still recovering from that. I just want everyone to forget this notion that we're just so much better here and all this crap can't happen here, and honestly I think it's Canadians ourselves who are the worst for this, because i think it makes us stop examining ourselves and asking questions.Which brings me to...I don't like where I see things headed. Living right next to the US, it's inevitable that we are influenced by what goes on there. I think some Canadians are really shocked by what's happening down there and it's really solidified this sense of "well I don't want THAT to happen HERE!"....But there's other things going on as well. I definitely notice a lot more racist buzz. Familiar members of mine who were just annoyingly conservative before are now blatantly and offensively islamophobic. In my province we recently had someone set fire to a mosque during evening prayer. There's graffiti and hate crimes. I do notice it getting worse.Recently we had a bit of a political shakeup, in that we got rid of Stephen Harper, a conservative premier who had been in office for a while, and elected Trudeau, who is liberal, and... despite what you might think of him, is a charismatic leader. In my province, we've had a conservative provincial government for decades, and we got so sick of it that we voted NDP in the last election, which is a worker's party, essentially, and they raised our goddamned minimum wage.And just like in the US, when you elected Obama after all the grumbling there was about Bush and there was push-back against Obama, there seems to be a conservative push-back to all of this.In Ontario they recently elected an absolute buffoon as premier, Doug Ford, and to be honest he strikes me as Trump Lite. He is related to an absolute fuckhead who used to be a mayor, Rob Ford, and whose "antics" were so ridiculous it got us international attention. Anyway this asshole Doug, he wants to do fun stuff like limit access to abortion, and roll back the minimum wage, and other bullshit like that. I thought he was too ridiculous and extreme to get elected premier, and I was wrong.A year or two ago we had a municipal election in my city, and there was concern that there was a mysterious lobby group that no one knew anything about trying to influence the election. Municipal elections are municipal! There was a gross smear campaign and people even stooped to literally sweeping the city and removing all the signage placed out by one of the candidates. Luckily it turned out the campaign didn't work and the candidates that had been targeted mostly all still won, but like. It was just so chilling to me, in the context of everything else that's been happening lately. I'd never seen anything like that happen in my city before.I hear nothing but articles about what a shitty job Trudeau is doing, first it was he was fucking us over by not pushing through this stupid goddamned pipeline, then it was that he was a liar and a traitor by eventually signing the pipeline, he's corrupt, he's a liar, all this shit. My *liberal* friends are telling me all this stuff. I'm not saying he's perfect. He's not. But here's the thing.There's been reports of concerns of Russian and Chinese involvement with our elections. I take consumer response surveys to earn money. Sometimes the surveys ask about local politics or concerns. Suddenly in the last year, the political surveys are unprofessionally biased and asking me questions about conservative politics. A fun local paper we had was recently bought by someone else and now instead of fun local stories, it's all this urgent scaremongering. FLOOD SEASON! AIRLINE STRIKE DISASTER! CITY HOUSING CRISIS!And I think about how we had the facebook data mining, I think about the Russian Tumblr accounts spreading discord to demoralize left leaning voters, and I'm worried that I'm watching the start of that. It makes me feel extremely uneasy. I think there's something going on.The Conservative party is kind of fumbling around at the moment, and I'm worried there's going to be a massive reorganization, and come next election, we're going to be looking at a racist, religious conservative candidate who wants to privatize our healthcare, limit immigration, reduce abortion access, freeze minimum wages, let oil and gas do whatever the fuck they want, etc etc etc. I'm worried it'll be a scary candidate like we've never seen before.And I'm worried that our next election will be Trudeau VS Trump 2.0, and the left-leaning voters will be split between parties, because these shadowy groups have spent a few years making everyone disagree with each other, and it will be the same thing, the exact same goddamned thing that happened in the US. "But Trudeau is so corrupt...." they'll say, and they'll split the vote, and we'll have some awful, awful shit who wants to ruin everything.Now, that's a pretty alarmist attitude, perhaps. There's certain values and certain rights we have in Canada that we're pretty passionate about, and I don't think politicians would be able to get away with as much bullshit up here as they do down there. But I don't know what's happening any more. I'm not sure of anything. Every time I think "it would never get that bad" or "people would never let that happen" something happens that proves me wrong, so. I honestly don't know. I have a really bad feeling in my gut from the weird things I see happening, I've put two and two together, and I don't like what I see.So I mean. At the end of the day, I don't think things up here will ever be as crazy as things in the US. Our government is organized a little differently, we deal with issues a little differently. But I'm still concerned. I don't like what I see, and these last two years have taught me that human beings are fucking disappointing and we don't fucking learn, from anything.I think Canada is a good place to live, and I think it will probably continue to be a good place to live. (Maybe stay away from Ontario and the prairie provinces though)There's my extremely pessimistic point of view. Probably other Canadians wouldn't tell you this, so maybe take it with a grain of salt. Message me if you have any other questions, I would love to answer them.

[tesseractj]

The Truth, and too much of it

Here we go, Fanfic 1.

 I got the prompt for this at http://imagine-loki.tumblr.com/post/153439568024/imagine-you-and-loki-are-members-of-the-avengers

 Now, I am so new to all this and I probably need to learn tons more about Tumblr, presentation, etc. I also need a PC for this. Instead, I'll let it fly. 

 Summary: OC is a long time Avenger, gets kidnapped, gets drugged, gets rescued, and shares far more of her love life with Loki than she ever wanted to. Steve and Bruce want to hide, Tony wants to listen and Loki keeps prompting for more. 

 OC and basic universe is based on a much bigger fanfic I have been working on. Basically she's a shameless self-insert, Loki is doing better and is an Avenger, and everyone actually does live together when possible creating a nice family of happy Avengers. Definite references to smut, sex, kinks and NSFW stuff. Also minor references to a nebulous past trauma. 

 .................................................. 

 The trick to this drug seemed to be to turn the stream of consciousness into a personally interesting rant. I was slowly driving my captors nuts with it. 

 They asked about Iron Man’s weaknesses and got a rant about Tony’s inability to receive a cup of cocoa when handed to him, or his habit of ordering dinner before anyone had decided what to eat or cook. The best info they gained was his favorite drinks and favorite swimsuit model. That rant lasted a good hour, broken by attempt to steer the information to their needs. 

 “Nooo, weaknesses in the his suit design!” “Like clothes? Nope, he’s got a great designer for clothes. Perfect designs.” They learned his strange clothing choices, designer apparel with $2,000 cufflinks, and then a great deal about Pepper’s awesome wardrobe. They cut me off again when I started talking about the history of the color pink and child product consumerism. 

 “No, his suit, tell us about the Iron Man suit weaknesses!” 

 “Have you seen that thing? Who thinks red is a good color for a suit? Tony freakin’ Stark. I love the guy, but any chance it could be black, brown, camo? Noooooo. Red and Gold! Not that Steve’s suit is better. Still, he didn’t design it so I give him a break there. . . usually.” That devolved into a comparison of all Avengers’ gear designs, and more embarrassingly who looked hot in what.

 They tried asking about the defences for Avenger’s Tower and the compound. I had more trouble deflecting that. I couldn’t help but start talking about FRIDAY, but once I got myself talking about the AI’s personality I was off on a rant about the comparisons between her program, the TESS program in my Neural Interface and JARVIS. TESS won that comparison, after 15 minutes of one sided discussion. 

 “What is Nick Fury’s home address?” I laughed at the likelihood of anyone knowing that answer. No one could discover his favorite coffee, let alone his home address, codes, birthday, favorite color, etc. 

 “Does Black Widow fear anything?” I got in 15 minutes about how amazing spiders are, how they are related to horseshoe crabs, how insects were the first land animals and what does Natasha have to do with sea lions? 

 “Listen up! We don’t know what another dose of this will do.” Interrogator #3 held up another vial of whatever they kept dosing me with. “We’d prefer you sane and useful, at least until we sell you and your info to the highest bidder. You are really making that hard.” 

 “Maybe the drug is no good on me? Did you test it on normal humans or genetic experiments visiting from other universes? There’s only a few of us visitors hanging around, so, I’d be pretty supri-”

 “There’s more of you?” Interrogator #1 exclaimed, looking both excited and worried at the thought. 

 I almost winced, that was more info than I wanted to share, but,”More of me? Not on this planet that’s for sure. We tend to aggravate each other outside of specialized conditions.” “More visitors fro. . . what the hell was that?”

 I was saved from accidentally revealing anything by some very loud sounds coming from somewhere not too far off. I sighed in relief. “You all are in so much trouble now. If Nat, Bruce or Loki are here you are dead meat.” Now I explained how painfully dead those three would make my captors. 

 “. . . and after the Hulk puts you through a wall Loki will pull your insides out through any hole he finds. If you haven’t died yet he’ll-” 

 “Shut up! This can’t just be the drug. You must be insane! Who says all that so cheerfully? How did you take a question about the Hulk and turn it into a lecture about Black Holes, Stars Exploding and Poles?” I grinned at the remaining guy in the room. That had been a fun stream about Gamma Ray bursts, threats to life in the universe and Magnetic Pole reversal. 

 Huh, when did the other two guys leave the room? I was knew the drug was affecting my awareness, but that was worse than I thought. Oh well, the door was flying open and I was given a second off from having to answer anything as I watched Steve stop the final guys questions. 

 My awareness hazed out for the next bit until I was breathing fresh air and realized that I was explaining to Cap how medicines for mental illness had side effects like memory loss.

 “Is she alright? Let me see her!” I heard a pleasant, if urgent, voice cut through my mental fog. 

 “Loki! I told them they’d be in big trouble if you came. I knew you would be here. Did you rip anyone to shreds? Did Nat come and break some bones?” I asked happily, likely sounding almost drunk.

 Loki looked straight into my face, eyebrows drawn in confusion. Instead of answering me he turned to Steve, who had helped walk me outside. “What has happened to her, Captain? What have they done to her?”  

“It seems they had a truth serum of some sort. We gave Bruce samples and he’s already started analysing it on the Jet. We’ll know more by the time we get home.” 

 “Know more? I’m certain I could reveal everything we need from one of the prisoners,” Loki got a dangerous glint in his eye. 

 Steve was going to raise an objection, but I couldn’t keep my mouth closed. “Awww, I know I shouldn’t, but I love the way you look when you get all dangerous and angry.”

 Loki turned back to me in concern and surprise. Before he could ask for clarification on my apparent love of his dark side I continued with more helpful information. “It’s some sort of temporary inhibition release, like a truth serum thingie mixed with ativan mixed with alcohol. They said it calms the subject(me!), reduces or rids control of mind to mouth and encourages open thinking. I really don’t think they realized what open thinking means for me. They learned a lot about my love of sciency stuff and how I adore all of you guys, verrrry little about our defences or secrets.” 

 I looked more seriously over at Steve,”I was getting really loopy at the end there. It’s worth seeing if they got a record of anything in case something important slipped. I haven’t heard TESS, since the first dose, but she might be fully operational and have a record.” Always helpful to have an AI built into your brain, or adjacent to it, or whatever Stark called it.

 I felt a hand turn my face so I would look back at Loki. “But are you alright, love? Did they hurt you?” The concern on his face sobered me up as we started walking to the Jet. My general awareness seemed to be coming back as I also noticed a SHIELD team run past about twenty feel off, and Tony was talking to someone while pointing back at the building I had been held in. The Jet was only a few hundred feet away, like a little piece of home come to get me. 

 “I’ll be fine, I think it was just a few scratches and bruises. They insisted the drug needed high doses to hurt a normal brain, and you know my physiology would handle way more than a normal human brain.” I paused to look closer at him and say,”Sorry I got kidnapped, again. I really don’t want to worry anyone, especially you.” Memories of the previous, and much worse, abduction made me shudder lightly.

 I felt his arm pull me closer to him as we started up the ramp. He seemed to take a moment to breath the scent off my hair. “It’s hardly your fault. I do wish I could keep such events from occurring. However, I would like to return to a comment you made a moment ago.” 

 I looked up at him in confusion as we settled into the seats. “You enjoy my dangerous and angry look?”

 Even in my current state I felt a blush start, “Well, yeah. You know I think you are extra sexy when you are all serious, or protective and angry. It’s not like I never told you that, right? Or, wait, no, yeah, didn’t I mention it that first time we had the silk cords and candles, whe-” 

 “Uh, Juliana, you know Bruce and I are standing right here, right?” Steve asked in a soft but mortified tone. Bruce looked like he wanted to shrink into oblivion.

 Any blush I had before was nothing compared to the the heat I felt on my face now.  No, I hadn’t even thought about who else was on the plane. It was as if everything but Loki and I had disappeared. Loki had one of his freakin’ smirks going and I knew he felt no shame. “Oh good lord, I’m so sorry Steve. Hi Bruce, sorry. Umm, thanks guys for coming to rescue me and I can’t believe. . . stop smirking Loki!” I whacked him on the shoulder. 

 Bruce tried to sound understanding,”No, it’s fine, I get it. You are under the influence, so to speak, Don’t, don’t worry about it Jay. Just glad you’re okay.”

 “Don’t worry about what?” Tony’s load steps echoed into the Jet as he came onboard. His suit was on, helmet off, and he looked curious. 

 The answer came from the cockpit, which furthered my embarrassment,”It’s nothing Tony, that’s why we don’t have to worry.” Clint had heard me too.

 Everyone should have known Tony would have none of that. Loki’s smirk became a full grin as Tony said,”Oh no, it’s something.” He looked at me appraisingly, then pointed as he figured it out,”You're still drugged and started dishing out something good. What is it? Spill.” 

 My face hit my hands as I started,”Well, I was remembering the time Loki and I-”

 “TONY, no! No taking advantage of this. Sorry Jay, you don’t have to answer,” Steve interjected before things got too far. 

 “But daaaad, it was gonna be fun!” Tony whined.

 I got to grin as I watched Tony piss off Steve, which kept up until Natasha got on board and we prepared to head home. I learned that Thor had flown off for a date as soon as he heard I was rescued. That turned out to be a very good thing, because Loki wasn’t done with his fun. 

 A few minutes after take off I was finally quiet, staring at the spot I had been lying in after me last rescue. I wanted to curse the system of balances that made pain and fear a good substitute for all the bad things I could stop. It was worth it but. . . 

 ”Surely a simple smile did not merit such a violent response,” Loki spoke up, rubbing his shoulder as if I had actually hurt him. “I would love to hear more about what you were remembering. I can’t seem to place what you were speaking of,” he sounded almost thoughtful, under his blasted smile.

 “Oh good lord, Loki! Don't think I doubt you remember that perfectly well. Green silk cords, specialty candles, those flo-” 

 “Hmmm Hrmm,” Steve coughed as I turned red again.  

“Oh great, I am still just spewing out everything in my head. How long will this last?”

 I glanced over at Bruce, who was looking very uncomfortable. “Oh, um, I don’t really know. I’ve tried to hook FRIDAY in to TESS and they are running some numbers. Let me see. . . oh, looks like 3-6 hours?”

 I gasped,”Oh no, no no, is there a sedative, yeah, sedative you can give me? I am not ready for my inner dialogue here.” 

 “Jay, Juliana, you just sat with strangers for over 7 hours under the influence. We are much safer,” Steve tried to reason. 

“First off, I don’t care what those a-holes think of me. Second off, different circumstances lead to very different answers. I was in a clinical interrogation, it was easy to stay impersonal. You all are my family, it’s personal here. Third, look at Loki’s face! He’s planning mischief!” 

 Loki put on an air of hurt innocence,”I most certainly am not!” 

 “Ugh, we all know better darling. You might be subtle, but you are trouble,” I glared, with maybe a hint of love bleeding through.

 “I could be less subtle dear, if you like. Or I could,” he leaned in, close to my ear, “ask something very subtle, like what do you want?”

 Everybody else disappeared again as my answer took over. He made things worse by skating his fingers over my neck. “I want to strip your armor off, throw you down and kiss every part of you until you-” 

 “Loki, enough! That’s enough of this!” Steve sounded half panicked, half furious. He was trying to use his Captain America voice, though it sounded just a little off. 

 “Perhaps if you and Bruce are finding this uncomfortable, you could move farther away from our conversation,” Loki offered. 

 Tony snorted at that. He was having a grand time now. This was all he wanted out of a good truth serum debacle. Steve was flustered, I was flustered but showing my kinky side, and Loki was grinning like the happiest God of Mischief in the universe.

 Loki looked back at me,”You must be hungry after everything.” 

 “Seriously, using that voice and saying that? Of course I am hungry,” I said, trying to steer my thoughts to food, chocolate, fruit, oh no. “I would love to have some chocolate and, and, and,” I tried to fight it,” annnnd I would love to lick it off of you, bit by bit. I would paint both of us in it, and then use a whole strawberry. . .”

 Steve and Bruce fled as far as they could get. Tony’s eyes went wide as he gleefully listened to my fantasy. Loki got a different look in his eyes, promising fun down the line.

 It was a few days later that I thought back and realized something quite important. Every time I had started to get overwhelmed with memories from that previous trauma, Loki would step in an distract me with stupid salacious prompts. I couldn’t decide whether or not to thank him, or if I should explain that he could have picked a less embarrassing distraction. Then I remembered that look in his eyes, and how once I got a clean bill of health we made good use of green silk cords and plenty of chocolate. Not much more needed to be said, once I thought of that.

[blondrichclosetwitch]

A few weeks ago, I saw this picture in my sleep. For those that don’t know, it’s a picture of Susie cave with one of her twins, Arthur, from when he was super young. Arthur died in 2015. I believe he had taken a hit of acid and fallen off a cliff.

I saw Nick cave 3 years & 4 days ago at olive’s when my niece was adamantly telling me to go there before therapy. The minute I saw Nick, I saw the word Arthur in my mind. I gulped, tried to get up nerve to say “ hey your dead kid’s name just popped in my head, I think he wants to say hi.”..and failed miserably.

It was probably early 2020 when I saw Arthur leaning against a tree. I’d never see him inside of spaces, but I would in nature. I had screenshot the picture of him and Susie years ago, though it wasn’t til I hung it on the wall in 2020 that I understood why.

The baby can’t be called a baby anymore, but he started following me around noticeably in 2020 (btw “baby universal 97” started to play, lol). First my teacher told me he followed me in, holding onto my coat....then I took a picture at a tree and you can see his spirit. Because of apple live pictures or whatever you call them, you can actually see it moving. Then he started speaking through the playlist, where eventually he told me his name was “ouija”, which has three letters of his chosen names.

The picture of Susie & arthur suddenly became symbolic. Another time my eyes landed on a Picture of my mom with my nephew at age 4; another dishwater blond boy. Right.

Seeing the picture in my sleep was a surprise only in that I hardly ever see pictures in my sleep. I’ve dreamed of Nick & Susie a few times —-I suppose because we’ve both been heavily connected to the other side.

I heard a couple days ago to “go to the water”. I cringed; my feet are being problematic to the extent that walking an hour will make me sore. Add that with the stress of the cats, and basically I have been stressed for 48 hours, and I hate that. I hate feeling like things are out of control. Especially around special days, I like to have the space to breathe, mostly because I like to be generous & honor whatever ancestor in whatever way they prefer.

That often means going to Coney Island, a practice that started the summer of 2017. I think I promised my niece I’d take her to the water, and ever since then, it’s been our special place. Death days, anniversaries, etc. the first time I went was to bury all my necklaces, because they were swinging, and also, I thought getting rid of all swinging things would mean getting free..but no.

I didn’t know anything about anything. Sometimes my jaw hangs at my naïveté.

There were carnations and a baby bottle waiting for me in the sand today. Apparently I’m predictable in where I go. At first I thought oh no, she wouldn’t as I picked up the bottle. Spirit said otherwise. Carnations were the giveaway.

Btw; I saw the tumblr you made for me, where you keep liking & reposting my stuff. I thought about just blocking you again, but whatever.

I do think you should bury the bird you left me though.

“Sometimes I sit and think how it would be if we was married

Of if I woulda kept the child that I carried”

I remember what steel said when I was trying to decide about the baby as I waited for my laundry in Washington heights. “Whether you physically have it or not, you’ll be raising that child.” It makes me think of when stella died; I thought I had to feed her, and make sure she slept, and when she was upset because it was Halloween and she didn’t have a costume in heaven, I did everything in my power to find a solution.

Jakk I made you a tape at the ocean about this. I probably won’t send it..but I think you should think hard about this. That you don’t yell at your girlfriend when she calls you after missing her appointment because she can’t bring herself to go terminate the pregnancy.

That moment defines you for me for the rest of time.

[studying-irene]

hey everyone, i’m going to be honest here, you will never get rid of procrastination completely. unless i’m wrong, and there may be some possible way to completely get rid of procrastination. if so, i don’t think anyone has figured it out.

anywho, i’ve been procrastinating for years, so i feel like i have some decent tips on how to procrastinate less. here’s my advice!

1. focus on your discipline the most. your discipline skills are your biggest defense against procrastination. there will be times in your life where you just DON’T want to finish your essay, we’ve all been there. you need good discipline to get you in focus. stop thinking about all of those distracting concepts that pull you into procrastination, and start doing your work.

2. you need to keep the good motivation to fight procrastination. it ties along with #1, except motivation is more long term. if you want to accomplish your goals, you get the discipline needed to work for them.

3. try to find time around the day to do some work, especially at school. i do school work at lunch, and sometimes in the morning, as well as occasionally in class if i have free time, since i don’t have a study hall. it helps since it feels like you have less work to do during your normal studying times.

4. remember, doing a little bit of work for a big assignment is better than ditching it completely. if you get a project on the first day, and only manage to do 1/5 of it on that day, it really is better than not doing it at all. you might thank yourself later. try really hard to at least do ONE thing on any work you get on the first day.

5. multitask if more than one assignment correlates with another. if you have a history worksheet and a history test coming up, use the worksheet to review concepts when you need to study. i do this often, and it helps me more than just doing the worksheet. this might not help others though, and that’s fine too! if you can only focus on one thing at a time, you do your thing.

6. i cannot stress this enough, find any good time management that works for you. one popular option is the pomodoro technique (25 minutes of working with a 5-minute break. i’ve heard of other options as well, from 20 → 10, 40 → 20, and even 52 → 17. if you’re not into routines, at least take a break for 5-10 minutes whenever you feel mentally exhausted! just not every 5 minutes, trust me, that leads to procrastination after the second or third “break”.

7. use your “break” time (from #6) doing something relaxing and NOT distracting. unless you have godly discipline skills, i doubt going on your phone will cause you to get back to work properly. take a small walk, eat a snack, stretch, etc.

8. use those app/program blockers to block social media and messaging apps if you’re like me and you have severely weak discipline skills. nothing much will happen while you’re busy doing your work. if something does occur, that’s up to you to find out when you’re done with your work.

9. find a good place to actually do your work! my favorite is the library, it’s so peaceful and it gives the right setting for studying. try your best to study in the least distracting place possible. if you can’t, attempt to decrease as many distractions in your location as possible.

10. find what works for you in terms of listening to music. i personally listen to kpop, and some of us know how catchy the music can be. however, i can usually listen to kpop while doing worksheets without getting distracted. however, if i’m studying, retaking notes, reading, etc. i need ambient music (i mainly use rainymood.com!) to make me concentrate. some of us need instrumentals and/or ambient music, others can’t listen to music at all. that’s fine!

11. turn off your notifications, turn on airplane mode, put away your phone, etc. do anything that works for you. i need my phone as well as internet, so i just turn off my notifications, but not seeing any distractions might make you more likely to do your work.

12. plan things out when you get home. i personally cannot do my work first thing when i get home unlike some people, i get too mentally drained from school! i take a shower, and then eat lunch while doing my work. find out what works for you. i also cannot do the hardest assignment first to “get it out of the way”. i need a medium level assignment to prepare myself for the heavy mental work for the hard assignments!

13. as referring to #12, if one advice doesn’t work for you, don’t use it! we are all different, so if practically everyone you know can do one thing, and you’re better doing the opposite of that, just do what makes you better at productivity.

14. plan out big projects, quizzes, tests, etc. do not cram! i repeat! please! do not cram! it doesn’t feel good at all, and you’re more likely to score worse anyways. try to balance out your work/studying every day or a couple days a week with a good amount of time for all of those days. it helps your memorization more, too.

15. some say that studying in a different place once in a while helps. i personally never tried this, because my brain cares more about adaptation, but it has helped other people i know!

16. get comfortable when you study, but not too comfortable. don’t study on your bed, and please don’t study on the floor. your brain thinks of your bed as the place to sleep, so it’s best to not be on your bed often unless it’s for sleeping. for me at least, studying on the floor really kills my back. please get comfortable and find a table or desk or anything good!

17. another thing i do is that i switch assignments if i feel like i’m not focused. it helps me a lot, i would assume it lets my brain change focus to another productive activity which results in me gaining focus on something important!

18. do anything productive if you have a long break (or if you’re procrastinating haha). it gets your brain in a productive mood and it can help you focus when you go back to your work.

19. reward yourself for whatever bit of work you accomplish. my favorite rewards are my biggest distractions that i look forward to when i finish all of my work. :”)

20. take your free time away to do some extra work every once in a while. it certainly helps not to cram everything in one day.

21. please remember that it takes some, if not a lot of time to improve a habit like procrastination. you will not improve completely in one night. and sometimes, you will procrastinate, and that’s okay! just keep improving yourself, you have time.

22. if you’re looking for a reason or a sign not to procrastinate right now, this is it. tumblr can be such a distraction. you probably have something important to do. and i’m here to tell you to get back to work and finish what you need to do.

[quirkyresources]

- ̗̀ How to Make Gifs with Photoshop and KMPlayer (Very Detailed) by quirkyresources ©  ̖́-

♡ All my tutorials ♡

Hi! I'm no expert, but I've been making gifs for at least like four or five years, and over that time I've learned a lot, so I want to share that stuff :) Also, someone requested that I teach them how to gif. I hope this helps!

This tutorial will teach you how to create simple but quality gifs, like the ones in the gifset above! Those gifs are all from TV shows, but it should apply to giffing almost anything. I’ll be using KMPlayer and Photoshop.

This is the gif I’ll be showing how to create, as an example:

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to message me here :) And I’m somewhat new to writing tutorials, so if you notice that I got something wrong, please let me know. Thanks!

Please like/reblog if this is at all useful to you. Thank you so much if you do!

You need:

KMPlayer (link below) 

Photoshop (I'm using CC 2017, but I think any version with the timeline should work) 

A video to gif (recommended source below) 

A sharpening action (recommendations below) 

A PSD / or to know how to color gifs (recommendations & tips below)

I'll go over:

How to buy/download PS, download KMPlayer, and download a video! 

Taking screencaps in KMPlayer 

Importing the screencaps into Photoshop 

Cropping and timing the gif, organizing layers, etc. 

Adding a PSD or tips for coloring it yourself 

Adding subtitles & learning font settings 

Saving for web 

Posting to Tumblr

Various tips along the way!

The tutorial is under the cut. Have fun and good luck! ♥

[Note: If a photo looks too small, right click it and choose "open in new tab"]

Step 1: getting Photoshop, KMPlayer, and quality videos

Get Photoshop: I was able to buy my Photoshop, so I don’t have any free downloads to recommend, I’m sorry! But there are plenty of other Photoshop blogs on tumblr that can help with this stuff :) And there are some deals from adobe that might help you afford it if you want to buy it instead. They had a great one for college students that totally helped me. Anyways, if you can get it somewhere/somehow, here are the next steps...

Download KMPlayer: Here's the link (it's free!): kmplayer.com You can use it to watch videos, but in this case we use it to take screencaps of them to use for gifs.

Get your video: If you’re going to download a movie or show, I recommend getting torrents from thepiratebay.org and using μTorrent to download them. (Here's a tutorial for how to download stuff with it.) Be careful with viruses and stuff, though! When you look for a video, try to get one that's as HD as you can find, meaning one that is 720p or 1080p! That tells you what the height of the frames will be, in pixels. They are usually big files, but should be much better quality than others. Also, try to find videos that do NOT have network logos or ads on them!! They can make gifs look pretty bad, and it takes some serious cropping to get rid of them, which then makes it look even less quality.

Step 2: taking your screencaps Open your video in KMPlayer. (Open KMPlayer and press CTRL O.) Get to the exact scene/clip you want to gif. (Tip: it's hard to find the exact place you're looking for, so I recommend using your right/left arrow keys to skip through a little at a time.)

Once you're at the part of the video you want to gif, press CTRL G. This brings up the "frame extraction" window. This is where, as you can probably guess, you extract the frames for your gifs! Here are the settings I use:

I use these exact settings almost every time, except for the image format section. I go between JPEG and PNG. I use JPEG if I'm making a smaller gif (like 268px width or less) and I use a PNG if I'm making a larger gif (like 540px width.) This is because (or at least I've heard) PNGs are the highest quality option, JPEGs are the middle, and bitmaps are the lowest (don't use them!!) The only downside is that the higher the quality, the higher the screencap's file size. So use PNGs sparingly if that matters to you.

You can also change the "prefix" of the screencap filenames.

After figuring out all of these settings, click "start"! Then press play on the video, play until the end of what you're giffing, and press "stop" and pause it.

Then, in the frame extraction window, click the "open" button that’s to the far right of the "extract to" bar. This will open up the folder location of your new screencaps.

Step 2.5: organizing your screencaps What you'll want to do now is organize the screencaps into separate folders for each individual gif. This is something that's good to do whether it's all from one scene or you're doing a compilation of different clips. This is because, when you upload the screencaps into PS, it's best to have them in their own little folders!

(Tip: Personally I use 75 frames or less in each gif. This is because that’s the limit on the sharpening action I use, but I also think it's a good amount to stop at.)

Step 3: importing your screencaps into Photoshop

Next, we're finally going to move the screencaps you took into Photoshop. Yay!

Open file > scripts > load files into stacks. (Tip: Sometimes this function doesn't work on certain Photoshop downloads. If this is the case for you, here's a tutorial on how to get around that!) This brings up this window:

Click "browse" and find the folder with the screencaps you want for your gif. Select all of them and click "open". Then click "ok" and wait for them to load. Each screencap will load as its own layer in the layers panel, which is what you want to start with.

Step 4: changing the screencaps from layers into frames in the timeline

Once they're all loaded as layers, go to window > timeline. This brings up the timeline!

At this point, things should look something like this:

Now we can start using the timeline! In this method we convert the layers into frames that live inside the timeline, which we’ll use to make the gif move.

First click on the button in the middle of the timeline panel that says "create frame animation" right here:

Then click on the little three bars icon on the top right corner of the timeline. Click "make frames from layers" on the thing that pops up .

It depends, but you might need to reverse the frames (if it imports them in backwards). So just click on that three bars icon again and click "reverse frames".

Step 5: cropping the gif

It's really important to know the Tumblr dimensions! If you have a gif that doesn't fit the dimensions most Tumblr users view it at it can get distorted.

So the width dimensions you should use are:

A row of just one: 540px wide 

A row of two: 268px wide each 

A row of three: 177px & 178px & 177px

A super helpful explanation of good dimensions to use is this one made by karazorel. It's very close to the way I do it.

So to crop it, go to the crop tool (duh, sorry) and enter in the dimensions you want into the area I highlighted here:

Here's what the gif looks like so far:

You'll probably notice it moves really fast and stops moving after playing once. That's because we haven't gotten to the step to fix that yet. But that's next!

Step 6: timing, looping, etc.

Timing: Select all of the frames. You can do this by selecting the first frame, holding shift, and clicking on the last frame. Now click the little arrow next to where it says "0 secs." under any of the frame previews right here:

Click on "Other..." and type "0.14" into the text field. That represents the number of seconds, or usually the fraction of a second, that each frame will play for. (It's "0.14" in this case because of the way we entered the settings in KMPlayer in the "Frames to Extract" section. The number depends on what you enter there.) Press enter/okay.

Looping: Next change the looping setting from "once" to "forever". Here's where I'm talking about:

Step 7: sharpening the gif frames

This step can either be done at this point (before coloring it) or later (right after coloring it.) I go back and forth on which is better, and different people say different things. So just play around with it!

I use this sharpening action. It can sharpen up to 75 frames, which is a really good amount in my opinion.

Once you have a sharpening action downloaded, go back to Photoshop and go to window > actions. Click this little menu button, then click "Load Actions...".

In the window that pops up, choose whatever sharpening action you downloaded and open it. This will load it into your actions panel!

Next, click the menu button on the upper right corner of the timeline panel and click "Flatten Frames Into Layers". Now there will be a new set of layers that are labeled Frame 1, Frame 2, Frame 3, etc. Keep those, and then you can delete the OLD set of layers. (That can significantly lower the file size, and it doesn’t mess anything up if you do it right!)

Now select the very first frame in the timeline, labeled "1", and select the corresponding layer, labeled "Frame 1".

Then open the sharpening action's folder within the actions panel and select the folder labeled with the number of frames you have in your gif. For example, I have 18 frames in my gif, so I selected the folder labeled "18 frames". Or at least that's the way they labeled things in the action I'm using. You may have to explore yours to figure it out.

Then click the play button on the actions panel:

Now that should have sharpened all of your frames/layers! Woohoo! Here's what the gif should look like by now, all cropped, timed, looped, and sharpened:

If this way of sharpening doesn't work for you, here are some other gif sharpening tutorials:

How to use sharpening actions in Photoshop CC by peacelovegifs 

Gif sharpening tutorial by manofsteel.co.vu 

Sharpening for Photoshop CC by completeresources 

Sharpening all gif frames at once by thosetutorials 

Sharpening masterpost by itsphotoshop

Gif sharpening action tutorial + download by themazerunnrs

Step 7.5: grouping your layers (a baby step!) A bonus step that I recommend you do is to put all your layers into a group to keep things neat. Just select all of them and press CTRL G.

Step 8: adding a PSD and/or coloring it yourself!!

Here's the fun part! Now you can let out your creativeness with the coloring. It takes a LOT of practice to get good at this, trust me. I've been doing this for YEARS and I still hate my results sometimes. But if that happens to you, too, don't let that stop you from trying again! (God, I sound like a motivational speaker or something, sorry!)

Here’s some background on PSDs for beginners, but you can totally skip this bit...

"PSD" stands for "Photoshop document", meaning a file you make or edit in Photoshop (sorry, kind of self explanatory). On Tumblr, when people talk about PSDs, they're usually referring to a document with layers that add effects (mostly adjustment layers) to a gif/photo/graphic, etc. Also referred to as a "coloring". They usually include things like brightness/contrast, vibrance, curves, selective color, etc. People post these so you can download them and use them for your own work! (Just don't repost and claim as your own. Not cool, man.)

All you have to do is download the file, open it in Photoshop, make sure you have the layers panel open (windows > layers), and drag the PSD file's window on top of your file's window, but keep them separate so you see both at once. Then drag the PSD file's group of layers (but not the background!) over to your file.

(Then you can close the PSD window.) Then on YOUR file, mess around with the adjustment layers and stuff to change it to whatever you want it to look like. I usually edit mine like crazy!

Anyways, here are what your options are. 

Finding a PSD (and then I recommend editing it to however you like it)

Here are places to find some great PSDs on Tumblr! (FYI, some are tag pages with sections for PSDs, with different types to choose from. So look around.)

QuirkyResources (Navigation) (Yup, shameless self-promo!)

QuirkyResources (My PSDs)

CompleteResources

ItsPhotoshop

ChaoticResources

YeahPS

DrunkandColoring

AresColoring

That's just a few of my favorite sources, so message me if you want more recs! :)

Coloring it yourself

I'm not going to do a full-on coloring tutorial right now, but here is my tag for those made by other people!

Basically you should learn how to use the most important adjustment layers: curves, brightness/contrast, selective color, color balance, hue/saturation, vibrance, levels, exposure, and gradient maps. At least those are the ones that I use the most and find super useful. Many of the tutorials in that coloring tutorial tag I just linked go over how to use those. So check them out!

In this case, I used my current fave PSD by dracoharry. (I’ve noticed it works on most shows I gif, so it’s super useful! I actually used it for all of the gifs in the gifset I made for this post.)

Here are the layers I kept hidden/showing:

FYI, I changed the layers' settings and whatnot a bunch.

And here’s what my result was:

Step 9: adding text & learning font settings (optional)

This is usually when I add text to the gif, if relevant.

There are various fonts and settings you can use for this, but to make things easier, here's a font PSD by adorkablelena. It’s for subtitles/quotes. I recently started using it. It's really cute! If you're not into it though, here's my tag for other font PSDs you can check out.

When you find a font PSD you like, open it and drag it into your document the same way you would with a regular PSD.

Select the text tool and replace the text with your quote. (Tip: Try not to misquote or misspell things if you can help it! I've done it and it sucks when that happens. Ugh.)

As far as colors go... For the primary quote I make the text white, and the secondary quote I usually make it yellow (#ffde00). And if there is a third I'll use some shade of orange, and anything after that I just use whatever I can make look the best. The stroke color I use varies sometimes, but I usually use black (#000000).

Finally, select the move tool (V) and make sure "smart guides" are turned on. To check this, go to view > show > smart guides, and make sure it's checked. Now when you drag around the text (select its layer first), you can see little purple vertical/horizontal guides pop up when you drag the text to the center of either direction. For the subtitle we're making, we want it to be centered horizontally and close to the bottom of the gif, but not too close. Also, if you have more than one line of text, just press enter somewhere in the text that splits it into similar-sized lines. Here's an example of all of this stuff put together:

Step 10: saving for web

There are a lot of settings to remember and play around with when saving for web, and specifically for Tumblr. 

First, go to file > export > save for web (legacy).

Here you'll see a lot of settings to choose from, but they're not as intimidating as they may look!

Here are my usual settings:

Red highlight: There are multiple options in the top drop down list in the area I highlighted that are good to use. I usually use “Adaptive”, but “Perceptual” and “Selective” are good options too. In my experience, the rest make your gif look pretty gross. For the drop down list under that I choose "Pattern". This arranges the pixels in a pattern, and I like the look of that more than the two other viable options, ”Diffusion” and “Noise”.

Orange highlight: This is where you choose the number of color shades that are in the gif. I use the top amount allowed, 256, because this achieves the highest quality possible! If you need to make the gif's file size smaller, you can lower this amount, but I don't recommend it. If it's a B&W gif you can sometimes get away with using less and have it still look just as quality.

Yellow highlight: Looping options: Forever. Very important! Like I showed earlier, you can also set this setting before you get to the "save for web" option. Either way, this makes it so the gif loops forever.

Green highlight: Gif size! As I mentioned earlier, there is a limit for Tumblr. This example is a pretty small gif (592.9K) and the current file size limit on Tumblr is 3MB. Tumblr seems to change this limit a lot though, so you may want to look that up once in awhile to stay up to date.

Turquoise highlight: Always check the box next to “Convert to sRGB”. I just learned that this setting is important. It basically keeps the vibrance intact when you take it from Photoshop to Tumblr. Read a much better explanation here! :)

Then just click "Save...", choose the file location, and press "Save" again.

Step 11: uploading/posting to Tumblr

Now, last but not least, it's time to upload it to Tumblr! I probably don’t need to explain this, but I’m going to anyways. It's super-duper easy. Just go to your dashboard and click on this button:

Then the post creation window pops up, and just go on from there. Upload your images/gifs, drag them around to arrange them however you like, and add a caption if you want.

(Tip: Don't forget to add tags! It's super important to add tags if you want people to actually find your post. Only the first 5 tags show up in the main Tumblr tag-search results (ugh wtf, right?) but sometimes the other ones you add will show up on the general search page. I don't really get how to explain it or how it works tbh, sorry! But I do know that many fandoms have developed their own tagging-language to find people's posts more easily (and avoid spam) which is very useful once you figure it out. For example, if I was posting a gifset of Cheryl Blossom from Riverdale, I'd tag it with things like "riverdaleedit" and "cherylblossomedit" and maybe "madelainepetschedit". So basically the name of the show/character/actor/ship plus "edit", no spaces. Or an abbreviation of any of those, like "spnedit" or "dwinchesteredit". I hope that at least makes a little sense? As far as the amount of tags that will show up on individual blogs, I'm not positive, but I believe you can use up to 30. After that the post won't appear on the tag's page. Grrr.)

Then, of course, just post it! I recommend saving it as a draft and then posting it at a time when a lot of people are likely to be on Tumblr. (There's research done on this timing!)

THE END! :D

I really hope that was at least somewhat helpful. Sorry if it was annoying that I went into sooo much detail, I just thought I should explain everything so it would make sense to most people, especially total beginners. Again, if anyone has any questions at all, you can absolutely ask me here! Or let me know if you think I got anything wrong, I would definitely want to fix it! Thanks for reading, and please like/reblog ♥ I’d really appretiate it!

[crimsxnflxwerz]

Don’t Want it Troubling Your Mind [bfu fic] -chapter 4

Don’t Want it Troubling Your Mind Fandom: buzzfeed unsolved Pairing: Shane Madej/Ryan Bergara; Shane Madej & Ryan Bergara Summary: Shane Madej really liked Ryan Bergara. He was funny, a joy to mess with, and took his brand of teasing pretty well. He would consider him a friend, kind of. But when the team goes to investigate the Franklin Castle for ghosts, Shane gets more than he bargained for, and the results could cost him his friendship with Ryan. Rating: teen Warnings: Demonic Possession, Existential Crisis, Complicated Relationships Authors note: This is a repost from Archive for people who don’t like Archive/prefer tumblr/etc. sup guys.

A week goes by. A whole week. And not just any week, the kind of week where you can feel every second of every day, grinding your teeth, unable to feel anything except your blood pumping through your body and gravity pressing down on your bones. The kind of week that lasts more than seven simple days.

No, it wasn’t the work that was getting deep under Shane’s skin, it wasn’t the stress, or the sleep, or the lack of appetite. It wasn’t his used up sick days, or the laundry sitting in a pile at the end of his bed. It wasn’t the rising electricity bills, or the polluted city air, or the hole forming in his favorite pair of socks.

It was Ryan Bergara.

You see, this whole week, Shane and Ryan didn’t really talk. No, what they did was an elaborate dance. They would discuss, not talk. They would plan, not hang. They wouldn’t make eye contact. They wouldn’t smile or laugh. They barely acknowledged each other’s presence unless it was unavoidable.

To be clear, this was not Shane’s choice. If he was in charge of whatever this was, it would be cancelled immediately. Shane missed Ryan’s quirky smile, and his cheerful laugh, and his playful banter. It wasn’t that he didn’t have other friends, it wasn’t anything like that. It was just, Ryan was special. All his friends were special, everyone was special to him. Everyone was different in their own ways, bringing new ideas to the table, sharing weird thoughts, laughing together. He missed that with Ryan. He missed Ryan.

He may have heard that the clip of the demon was under scrutiny right now in the office. The camera guys remembered seeing some weird stuff happening on the cameras, but they couldn’t conclude if it was fake or not. A deeply rooted part of him knew, for a fact, that the film hadn’t been tampered with. Beyond trusting Ryan, he’d seen this creature that manipulated the footage, the bustling swarm of bees, the storm cloud of evil, or something.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. As Shane grew more distant from his own life, Anael started appearing in small patches throughout the day. Shane could see it in other people’s face, hear its voice in the wind, feel the heat under his skin, like something alive lived there. He felt haunted. He never thought he’d feel this way. He always viewed a haunting like those typical horror movie theatrics. Complete with dish tossing and flickering lights. This was none of that. Anael crept into his mind and laid all the traps. Every sense, manipulated, made vulnerable. The ghost he’d seen in his apartment building before, that must have been Anael. He had done extensive research about the building, and it was relatively new construction, on land that wasn’t cursed in any way. There were no records of deaths, unusual occurrences, or hauntings to be found. With what Anael could do to his vision, hearing, and perception, he figured that must be it.

He wasn’t at the point yet of looking into ways to get rid of demons. There was still a part of him that wanted so desperately for this all to be a bad burrito, or lack of sleep, or too much caffeine. He thought of seeing a therapist, because for a hot second, he believed his google diagnosis of psychosis.

Ever since Franklin Castle, he’d felt beyond fucked up. He wasn’t really sure how to go about patching things up, especially while the reason they were broken was still active in his life. Anael wasn’t doing much but just spooking him now. In fact, he felt as if the fun that Anael was having was becoming repetitive. He knew that the demon hated repetitive things, he’s sure it would spice it up a little soon enough. He feared the worse for when that happened.

The Franklin Castle episode ended up being delayed, due to the questionable footage. People were still looking at it, wondering what was wrong there. No one found anything to suggest tampering, but they still didn’t believe it was real. Instead, the boys were charged with looking for a new place to shoot.

Shane honestly thought this would be a good thing. It would take their minds off of what happened, distract himself from whatever was happening to him, and let them move along in the series. After a little bit of searching, they decided to go to the Villisca axe murder house in Iowa. It was a strange little house in a strange little town. Along with being strange, it was also old. Many people had owned it since the murder, and many people have toured it as well. Shane did a little digging and found that there were many reports of whispers, experiencing strange urges, and other classic haunting things, like noises and unexplained temperature drops.

Shane was pretty sure that he could manage on shoot without doing anything too stupid.

Probably.

The shoot was in three days. They planned on driving, so maybe he could convince the group that they could take two cars (something about the luggage being too big) so that he could spend some quality time with Ryan. He was sure he could fix this, if only Ryan would let him. Not that he blamed Ryan for any of this, it wasn’t his fault- it couldn’t be. Shane was the one who called Ryan’s show a joke. He was the one who couldn’t accept facts or admit that he was wrong. Ryan probably felt more offended by Shane’s apparently disbelieve and lack of faith in him than by any offhanded comment about the show. Friends were supposed to trust each other, through thick and thin, through better or worse.

Shane mapped out the course they would take. Around sixteen hours, give or take, that they would be driving. It was already a full day of driving, and with time for stops, as well as driver switches, they would have to plan on travel being around 18 hours. They wouldn’t be able to shoot, even if they got on the road at the crack of dawn. He would have to stock up on five-hour energy, or a monster cup of coffee, or something. He just hoped that Ryan would be into the idea, the separate cars thing, that is.

When Shane arrived at the office, it was already bustling. It was 7am, and lots of people had come early to get work done earlier. It was rapidly approaching Halloween, and that meant parties. The earlier they could get out of work, the better, in that case. Arriving before 7am was just the compromise.

Shane wasn’t so big on parties, so he didn’t really care if he got home later. He was just going to go home and swap his work clothes for pajamas, pop some popcorn, and settle in for a scary movie anyways. He smiled at the thought, but did deflate a little when he remembered that Ryan probably wouldn’t be joining him.

As he walked to his desk, he wondered if he should just come right out and say it. Tell Ryan what was happening, that a demon was haunting him, making him say and do things. He wanted to tell Ryan, but there was a fear deep in his chest, one of insecurity. What if Ryan thought he was pulling his leg? What if he thought that Shane just wanted that get out of jail free card, and just made it all up? Shane was a lot of things, even an asshole sometimes, but pretending to be possessed was not something he would ever do to prank Ryan. Call out to spirits? Yeah. Challenge demons and lay on pentagrams on the ground? Yeah, he would do that. All that stuff was humorous. Ryan always laughed at his antics. Being possessed, or pretending to be? No. That was somehow crossing a line. Shane wasn’t really a man to cross lines often.

Ryan was at his desk next to Shane’s when he got there.

“Morning, Ryan.” Shane said. He smiled. Ryan glanced up at him quickly in acknowledgement, before looking right back down at his screen.

“Morning,” he said. “So, got everything planned out for the trip?”

“Yeah, about that,” Shane began, pausing just enough to get Ryan to look at him again. “I was wondering if we could take two cars. Me and you in one, the crew in a second.”

“Um, why would we do that?” Ryan asked. He looked back towards his computer. Shane sighed.

“I thought that it would give everyone more room.” Shane shrugged. “It is going to be a long car right after all.”

Ryan was quiet for a moment, staring intently at his screen. He seemed to be considering what Shane was saying. Shane sheepishly crossed his fingers.

“Okay, sure,” he agreed. Shane silently cheered. “We can do that.”

“You wanna take my car or yours?” Shane asked. Ryan looked back at the taller man and quirked a small smile.

“Mine, of course.” He said. Then, almost like he’d caught himself having fun, his face fell, and he looked back at his monitor. “Just, make sure you’re ready, we’ll be leaving really early.”

Shane sat down at his desk, mentally preparing all the things he needed to accomplish on this car ride. He was going to patch things up with Ryan. They were gonna be close again, and Shane wanted nothing more than that. Well, he also wanted this damn demon to leave him alone, but in his book, Ryan came first, always.

That night he called Sara to hang out at his place. She was glad to chill, since she wasn’t too big on parties either. She came over and they changed into the spookiest pajamas they had, popped some fresh popcorn on the stove, and settled down to watch some bad horror movies on Netflix. They put on Friday the Thirteenth, but Stranger Things was in their queue for series to watch together, so they figured that would be next.

“So,” Sara said, plopping down on the couch with their bowl of popcorn. She crossed her legs under it, tucking her feet in. Shane sat next to her. It was oddly reminiscent of cuddling with Ryan on his couch during the documentaries night. To think that wasn’t so long ago, but it felt like it’d been years at this point. “How’s the Ryan situation?”

“Ahh, do you really gotta bring that up?” Shane sighed, but there was also teasing in his voice. He knew she was just concerned, and it wasn’t like he’d done anything too horrible, so it shouldn’t be hard to talk about it. For whatever reason, he just kept making it harder, which he’d quickly realized was a horrible thing to be doing.

“Hey! I’m concerned about you!” She said, smiling. “I believe in you, Madej. You and Ryan will patch things right up, then you’ll go back to being dorks or whatever.”

“Hey, I’m not a dork.” Shane said, though it had no heat. He knew she was right.

“Yeah, because lots of cool grown men get excited about kid’s cartoon series.” She teased.

“Gravity Falls is a masterpiece,” Shane argued. “Dipper is the most relatable character to ever exist.”

Sara shrugged. “Wendy was my favorite.”

After that, Friday the Thirteenth started playing, and they began their little movie watching spree. After the third episode of Stranger Things, Sara forced herself to stop watching. She didn’t really plan on sleeping over, so she got all her things and left, wishing him a goodnight. When she was gone, Shane glanced at the time. 12:20am. He managed to carry himself to his bed somehow, and as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out.

In his dream, he’s in a dark room, but he recognizes it. It’s a blue bedroom, moonlight peeks in from the cracks in the curtains. He’s not alone. Beside him sits a figure. He can tell that it’s Ryan. He wonders if this is some continuation of that last dream he had, but the thought leaves his head like it was blown away. He can’t see Ryan’s face, but he knows the expression there already. He’s frowning, but not an upset frown, a contemplative one. He raises a hand in the dark, touches his lips, and sighs. Shane can feel the tension in the air thinning out, as Ryan moves back in, closing the distance between them. He feels the side of Ryan’s head press into his chest, an arm wrapped around his waist. His other hand bracing himself against the bed, Shane can feel the dip. He’s not sure where to put his own hands, but one finds its way to Ryan’s hair and tangles itself there.

“It’s okay, I know this isn’t you,” Ryan says, and it sounds weird, like they’re underwater. “I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you.”

Shane opens his mouth to speak, but the words catch in his throat. Suddenly he feels an anger well up inside him. He tries to push it back, push it away, because it’s not his own, but he fails. The anger rises up and takes control of his body. He fists his hand in Ryan’s hair and yanks him off of him. Shane watches from outside of himself, as his body pins Ryan to the bed and growls like an animal. He moves forward to try and push his body off of Ryan, but then he turns his head and looks at himself. His eyes are yellow. So, so yellow, and so hot. Angry. Just this look sends Shane backwards, out of the room, and he hears the door slam and lock. Tears stream down his face.

“No!” he screams, but no one can hear him. “Fuck! No, no, no! I don’t want this! I fucking hate this!”

Shane jolted awake. He felt something on his face, and when he reached up, he wiped away tears. He sat up and saw that his pillow was wet, as well. Had he been crying?

The dream he had was foggy, but he remembered the hot anger, the desperate begging, the slamming door. He shivered. Just when he thought Anael was leaving him alone, he comes straight back with a dream to torture him.

He checked his clock. 5:57am. He might as well get ready for work. The shoot was in two days, and they would be leaving tomorrow. He still hadn’t packed yet, but he figured he could just do that after work today.

He walked into his bathroom and turned the light on, revealing a figure standing behind him to his left. He jumped, biting back a scream. The figure was a man with piercing yellow cat eyes, skin black as soot, with horns spiraling up out of its choppy black hair. It looked more like a shadow than a man, the edges of it blurring and misting. Shane spun around to face it, but it wasn’t there. He turned back around to look in the mirror and it was still there.

“What is it Madej?” the figure said, but there was no mouth, just a voice clear as day echoing in his head. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No, no, no,” Shane said through clenched teeth. “Stop fucking with me.”

“Maybe I would, if you would just let me in—”  the figure raised an arm to touch Shane’s shoulder. Before it could touch him, he jumped away from the mirror, staring back into the bathroom. Mist seemed to pour from all the little shadows in his bathroom to form a man. Shane moved backwards again, but tripped over his own feet and fell. He landed on his ass, looking up at the shadow demon.

“I saw what you want to do to Ryan,” Shane growled. Scared, but angry. The combination knocked the breath from his chest, made his head spin. “If you so much as breath in Ryan’s direction, I’ll kill you.”

The yellow eyes narrowed with mirth, and a horrible, echoing laugh sounded through his head.

“You? Kill me?” it laughed. “Not even in your dreams, Madej.”

The demon’s laughter got deeper and deeper as it’s body twisted and snapped, shrinking in on itself and reforming into something else. Shane scrambled to his feet, and when he looked back, a black dog had taken the demon’s place. It also had poison-yellow eyes, but this monster had large, white teeth and red, red gums. Shane bolted for his door, the dog growling and taking off after him, its jaws snapping mere inches from his ankles. He swung his door open and slammed it shut, sighing in relief when he felt a large thud hit the wood followed by a pained whimper.

At the sound of a cleared throat, Shane looked to the side. His neighbor was standing outside their apartment, giving him a concerned look. Shane slid down the door and sat on the floor. He smiled as normally as possible and waved.

“Such a great morning, isn’t it?” he laughed.

When Shane went back into the apartment after a quick walk outside to clear his head, it was exactly as he had left it. Nothing was out of place; besides the things he’d knocked over in his mad dash outside. He hoped that Anael didn’t decide to make yet another demon dog appearance. That one was by far the most terrifying.

It wasn’t as if Shane didn’t like dogs. He never had a dog in his life, or a cat, or anything larger than your average rodent. Dogs tended to make him nervous, generally, although he rationally knew that most of them were harmless. Stray dogs, however? They were unpredictable. They say not to pet stray dogs for a good reason.

Everything seemed to be okay, though, so he proceeded with getting ready. Though, he thought he would be early when he woke up this morning. He guessed he would have been if it weren’t for the demon haunting him. At this point, he could still solidly say that the demon scared him. Yeah, he wasn’t scared by much, but a demon who can transform into a rabid dog, speak through his mind, and wanted to ruin his life was pretty terrifying. Although, that fear was starting to move aside a little for a second feeling: anger. He was angry. Anael was getting in the way of his life, his friendships, his alone time. He was angry, because Ryan wasn’t talking to him, and he wasn’t doing anything about it.

This road trip would fix it. He would tie up all the loose ends. He would fix all the damage. He would trust Ryan and Ryan would trust him. He wouldn’t let the demon take Ryan, but he sure as hell was getting Ryan back.

He guessed that started with telling Ryan the truth.

When he walked into work, he immediately noticed that Ryan wasn’t at his desk. He saw that there were papers all over, his laptop open and dimmed in inactivity. There were two empty cups of coffee, a handful of printed photographs, a notebook, and three pens: one black, one red, and one blue. Shane looked around the room, but couldn’t see Ryan anywhere in the space. He pulled out his phone and opened his messaging app. He clicked on Ryan’s name.

His fingers hovered over the digital keyboard. Should he really shoot Ryan a text?

Fuck it.

Shane: Hey, you’re not at your desk, everything okay?

He sat down and booted up his computer. A few moments went by, where he mindlessly shuffled some documents around, before his phone chirped at him.

Ryan: yeah something’s come up Ryan: meet me in conference room b Ryan: we gotta talk

Shane immediately felt a little nauseous. He stood up so quickly that he didn’t see someone standing behind him, and knocked into them. Papers spilled out all over the ground.

“Oh god,” he said, bending down to help pick up the mess he made. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking—”

“Shane, it’s okay.” A familiar voice said. When he looked over at the person collecting papers with him, he saw that it was Keith. He grinned at Shane, collecting the last of the papers, before standing up. Shane handed him the ones he picked up. “In a rush?”

Shane scratched the back of his neck. “Uh, kinda, idk?” he wasn’t sure why he had the urge to run, but he did. “Sorry I bumped into you. You know how I get.”

Keith laughed. “Yeah, I know. I won’t keep you, here, thanks for helping me pick up.”

Shane blushed as he moved around Keith and made his way down the hall. He passed a few private offices and empty rooms, before he came to the conference rooms at the end of the hall. To the left were more rooms. He went up to the second one, took a breath in, and opened the door.

The conference room was spacious. In the middle of the floor was a table that easily sad ten people. All the chairs had wheels, and where all pushed out from the table in different directions like a group of people had just left. In one of the chairs sat Ryan. He seemed to be studying some papers. Shane cleared his throat, closing the door with a soft click.

Ryan turned around with a pensive look on his face. When he saw Shane, he seemed to almost smile, before his face fell.

“So, I’m just going to get right to the point,” he started, moving to stand. He didn’t look very happy. “We can’t publish the Franklin Castle episode.”

Shane felt like a rug was yanked out from under his feet. “What, now?”

“We can’t use the footage,” he repeated. “Remember the thing I showed you? I found more corruption and mysterious audio in the rest of the footage in the basement. When management saw the footage, they were convinced I had altered the footage, and demanded the original. I couldn’t give them anything, because I hadn’t done anything to the footage.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. “They said that if I didn’t remove the altered footage, they would cancel my show. I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to just scrap the whole episode.”

Shane stepped closer to Ryan, holding out his hands as if to comfort his friend, but stopped halfway. “Ryan, I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t do anything to the audio or the video! That was real evidence!” Ryan shouted, and it sounded desperate. “I swear I didn’t do anything! I swear!”

“Hey, hey,” Shane said in a calming voice. He reached out and grabbed Ryan by the shoulders as gently as possible. Ryan looked up at him. “Hey, I believe you. I believe you.”

Ryan looked hopeful for a moment, before he shrugged off Shane’s hands, looking hurt. “You said the show was a joke. You’re probably just saying this now, because I was mad at you.”

“Ryan, please, listen to me,” Shane started, trying to appear as honest as possible. “I believe you. You want to know why?”

Ryan was silent for a while, still sporting the lidded, untrusting look. Then, he sighed, nodding. “Yeah.”

“When we were in that house, I felt some things.” He said. “The first time I went into the basement, I was snooping around when I felt cold hands grab my shoulders from behind me. I turned around and no one was there. That’s why I was running.”

Ryan’s eyes widened. “So, when you were freaking me out in the basement—”

“I was experiencing something again like that. It was so weird and freaky,” Shane said. “I didn’t want to freak you out just then, and then later I just didn’t want to admit it.”

Ryan grinned, moving forward into Shane’s space and placing a hand on his arm. “So, you believe me? And stuff happened to you there?”

“Yes, of course, I believe you,” Shane said. “I know you wouldn’t alter tapes to fake evidence. You’re not that kinda guy.”

The smaller man let go of his arm and turned back around to collect his things.

“Well, even if we don’t get to post the Franklin Castle video,” he said, “at least we’re gonna be filming again soon. At the Villisca ax murder house, right?”

“Yeah,” Shane confirmed. They walked together back to their desks. “The drive’ll be fun, and I have a good feeling about this place.”

“Me, too,” Ryan agree. For a moment, they just looked at each other. Stood in each other’s space. Ryan looked as excited as he felt. Maybe everything was going to be okay after all.

[mcrmadness]

I’m really tired and going to sleep very soon, but at the same time I’m super curious about this whole MCR reunion concert - and because I live in Europe, it will begin around 7am Finland time. And that is waaaaaay (lol) too early for me, especially as I’m just going to sleep and it’s already 3:30am here.

But yeah, the old MCR fangirl is still somewhere in me. And right now, as I’m going to sleep, I started to crave for a new MCR t-shirt. I guess I have to get one sooner or later. I already have 2 old ones in my closet I think? But since I was 15 and then 20 when I bought those, they do not fit me anymore. And the 2011 shirt that I bought from the the second concert in Finland (I was to their first in 2007 too, I didn’t buy anything but I got Frank’s signature!) is women’s shirt anyway and I no longer use them because they are uncomfortable af. But I also still have my first MCR merch ever (if not counting the cds etc.) aka my Shredded hoodie jacket. TBP merch which we ordered with my mom back in 2007, and it came all the way from the USA :D I was 16 but for some reason that hoodie jacket still fits me! But I haven’t been using it for years, it has some holes here and there, so it’s also literally “shredded”, and even tho I still love that hoodie, it it’s kinda weird one because I always link that to my 16-years-old self who used that hoodie like 24/7 :D But idk, maybe I will wear it again tomorrow, just for fun?

Oh and by the way, I just realized. Around these days was my 13th anniversary of becoming a MCR fan. I can’t understand how it’s possible but yup, that’s right. And I’m not exactly sure which day it was... might have even been 18th December 2006 when I finally gave up and gave them a listen? Anyway, I was really bad with music before that, only being “loyal” to just one band and I was annoyed because MCR was EVERYWHERE and I didn’t get away from it and I felt like, I HAVE TO give them a chance so they will then leave me alone. But nope, I actually started liking them. A lot. And I’m also one of those who started using the slogan “MCR saved my life” because I was going through a really rough time back then. I was bullied and hated in school - that’s why “I’m Not Okay” video spoke to me A LOT, I think that one was pretty much THE one to me. As I got TBP songs + only that song from the earlier stuff.

(If you’re interested in my story about how MCR has always been super important to me and how they have helped with my mental health issues, you can click the Read more link below.)

So yeah, it’s bit of a clichë and everything but the video really spoke to me, it felt like I had just looked into a mirror. Except that we don’t have high schools in Finland but you know. Anyway, I started to have mental breakdowns because of school and started skipping school days, and feeling bad conscience for doing so. And I had already had severe social anxiety since I was 11 or so; and that just got worse and worse every year. And then during the last class I started having just regular anxiety/depression/whatsoever symptoms from all the loneliness and because I felt like teachers were too demanding, I tried to be the best I could which was not enough for me so I started underachieving and that made me get even more depressed and hate myself for not being good enough at school, and then I gave up about school altogether because I just couldn’t sleep at night because I was so afraid of dying in my sleep, I was obsessed with listening to my heart but trying to find a spot where I don’t feel it and then getting anxious because I found a position where I didn’t feel it and needed to start feeling it so I knew I was still alive. So going to sleep was horrifying, and whenever I woke up, that whole heart thing started over and I couldn’t fall asleep anymore. So I just got up and cried because I didn’t want to go to school, and stayed at home. And then so many times I saw Welcome to the Black Parade on TV and heard it from the radio and it was everywhere all the time. And I actually felt that MCR did not leave me alone because I needed them but I didn’t know that yet? It was weird :D

And they helped me to get through all that shit - I actually was to a psych ward for a full week which was the best thing that could have happened to me. In a way, at least. I finally could sleep and I promised to go back to school if I can go back home. And they agreed so I went back to school and actually was able to finish all the courses and pass all the exams and so my 9 years of hell called school was finally over. But my mental health got back on its tracks only about 1,5 years later when I was 17 and started eating antidepressants. Until that I did not know I was not okay yet because I made myself believe so because I didn’t want to go back to the psych ward. But I started to get feels of that depression thingy again in 2008 and I felt so so so terrible that I just decided this needs to end now but like, for me that end was “Hell, I could even start with the antidepressants, I can’t take this anymore” so that happened then. And I quit the meds in 2013 finally. I still have anxiety and other fancy accessories that come along with it but I’ve pretty much learned to live with it instead of trying to get rid of it. It’s still a part of me and the way my brains function and it’s just so much easier to deal with it when you just let it live its own life, listen to yourself and accept that we all just aren’t neurotypical and that’s okay.

But what I was saying was that MCR has always been really important for me with this topic because they have always been so open about these things so every time I was struggling with my anxiety or bullying or whatever, I always just thought to myself “The guys from MCR have got through all that shit too, and so will I!” and it just gave me hope that it IS possible to overcome anxiety or depression etc. I’m still slightly socially anxious but it’s better than what it used to be, and I have generalized anxiety disorder but it’s okay, I have better days and worse days but so far my anxiety hasn’t killed me so I’m still fine. It actually helps me to think to myself “it’s only in my head” because somehow it just makes sense and makes the anxiety smaller - sometimes - when I think it’s just the chemicals in my brains being fucked up :D On the worst days nothing makes sense of course and every anxiety feels so real and can’t talk sense to it, but I’ve still always got over the worse days too. And I haven’t been depressive in ages but sometimes I’m bit afraid of that anyway, because it left me with traumas basically, but I still believe that because I have been through some sort of depressive episode(s) in the past, I can recognize MY symptoms in time and I can get myself help if that happens.

This was now some random-ass opening up but as if that would be something new for me lol. Just had to be nostalgic for a moment, can’t wait for tomorrow to see what happens during the concert! I browsed some tweets and Tumblr posts and those soundchecks and everything are just so uncanny. I still can’t really comprehend that the day is actually today :D